Ethel's Amazing Umbrella Part 3

I'll write more later, as people are "Starving" around here, but I thought that you'd like to have some time to read the next chapter. This is the best one of all!!! May it be so for all of the Ethel's in the world!!!!!!!!! AMEN?

Dawn


By sundown, sleet was beginning to fall and the roads were like ribbons of plate glass, shimmering in the moonlight. Trees were beginning to bend to the breaking point, as the sheer weight of the ice that was forming seemed to create fan-shaped glaciers along Glenoak Lane, the long two-laned stretch that connected the main street of Forest Grove with the tiny road that ran along the outskirts of town where the Simpsons lived.

The trip home seemed to take an eternity for Ethel. You just can't drive too slowly on those kinds of streets, but even though she found herself just inching along, as she tried to negotiate that curve around Sanderson Creek, suddenly the right wheel on her little Rambler lost its footing, and before she could so much as respond, she had lost control, and found herself careening helplessly across the highway and into an ice-coated barbed wire fence that simply refused to give. As she crawled across the seat and out the passenger door to see what damage had been done, she stepped down hurriedly on the icy pavement, and losing her footing, she fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

"My umbrella is adequate," you could almost hear her thinking out loud, as the unflappable grandma grabbed hold of the antenna on the car, pulled herself up, shook off the snow, and assessed the damage. One dented fender, one crushed headlight, no broken bones.

Carefully, she started the motor and put it in reverse. With the rear wheels slipping and sliding, she inched backwards until there was just enough room between her one good headlight and that somewhat stunned fence post, and slowly she rocked her rambler back and forth, until it began to move, ever so slowly, back towards the highly polished highway that led to home.

"Well, I'm not much the worse for the wear," she surmised, as she walked up her front steps, "and Benny Grogan's Body Shop can reconstruct old Rusty the Rambler; they've done it before." With that, she reached for the lights in the front room, grateful to be in the familiar setting of home at last.

But it didn't take long for reality to settle in. The light's didn't go on. And it was obvious they weren't about to. Another power failure. Well, Ethel Simpson had handled power failures before. Her umbrella had been quite adequate for those. This was, however, the first one she'd faced when Billy wasn't home to help.

Soon, reality #2 settled in. This time, the extra circuit that operated the fan on the furnace was out, too; and the temperature in that rambling ten-room house was apparently in a race to the finish to compete with the temperature outside, and it wasn't clear which one was winning. There was at least one silver lining in the cloud, though. Nothing in the freezer had thawed. The whole house was a freezer.

After struggling to find her good flashlight, she discovered Grandpa had borrowed the batteries to power his flashing "Happy Birthday" sign on the Christmas cake, which meant she had to grope her way in the dark to the shed in back where the backup generator (which was just a little older than she was) held her last ray of hope for light and heat. But alas, it hadn't been checked all winter, and now that she needed it, a faint grunt and a final groan were all it was able to deliver.

Shivering, Ethel cautiously inched her way back along the ice-covered sidewalk to the house, where she began to grope for every blanket and overcoat in sight. After what seemed like an eternity of searching, she found the matches to light the candles. It seems Gramps had moved them to his shop in the garage without calling a high-level conference and informing the other half of the household of the change. She'd have to have a chat with Billy about that little move!

By now, Ethel was sure that Grandpa and the men would be back at the Drug Store checkin' out the decorations, so she figured a phone call would bring her a little comfort and a chance to vent some of her anger at her husband's inefficiency where the generator and the matches were concerned. There was, however, one more slight problem. The telephones weren't working either. Apparently, the storm up the way had iced over the lines, causing them to snap and no one was going to call anyone from that phone for probably a week at best.

Ethel looked out the window. It was as if somebody had suddenly emptied heaven of all its snow on one square mile of planet earth. The wind began blowing so hard, you could almost feel it through the walls, and the snow was falling so heavily, even the bright moonlight which had led her home, was totally obscured by the blanket of white that literally surrounded her.

Suddenly, a feeling of panic settled in; a feeling she had not experienced before. Believe it or not, Ethel Simpson was afraid. And she didn't have the slightest idea what to do about it. Oh, for a brief moment, she thought about praying, but she had programmed herself for so long that prayer was nothing but an exercise in futility that she dismissed that thought immediately and began searching for ways to divert her attention from the apparent hopelessness of the situation.
After what seemed like an eternity, she remembered the little portable radio she kept in the cedar chest in the hall. "If Billy didn't steal the batteries for some kind of lighted Bible cover or something," she reasoned sarcastically, "maybe I can at least listen to some music."

At last, success. She found the radio, batteries still intact, and she tuned it into station KLHG, an all night fm station up in Beaver City. Soon, soothing music began flowing from the tiny little receiver, and Ethel began to regain her composure, as though she had discovered a quick way to patch the hole that had appeared unexpectedly in her umbrella of self-reliance. Propped up on the couch, wrapped in three coats and four blankets, Ethel Simpson began to doze off to the tune of "Winter Wonderland" on her tiny radio. But wouldn't you know it . . . just as she was starting to drift into a somewhat arctic dreamland, the announcer breaks in and interrupts the music.

"We interrupt this broadcast for a special news bulletin," he curtly announced. "This word is just in from Sheriff Bill Jamison in Marble Creek. A search party has been combing the area for the whereabouts of at least three people presumed to be lost when their houses were destroyed in today's storm."

"Sheriff Jamison just informed us that the search party came upon unexpected winds just north of the Oak Creek cutoff, and four of the ten searchers were swept away unexpectedly by the currents. We are glad to report that three of the four have been located and rescue teams are on the way. Only one is still missing. Tim O'Reilly, head of the search crew, lists the one still missing and feared lost to be . . . . . one Billy Simpson, age 62, from Forest Grove. We repeat, all others appear to have been saved. Stay tuned to this station for further developments."

It was at that point that Ethel Simpson's amazing umbrella began to leak, . . . and badly. For the first time in her life, circumstances were beyond her control. The one person in her life that mattered above all else was missing and presumed to be dead, and she was marooned in a house that resembled a rambling refrigerator, devoid of heat or light, cut off from all her friends and family. She had no place to turn.

Make that almost no place.

Trembling from head to foot, partly from the cold, and partly from the shock, she sank to her knees, her head resting on the cushions of the couch, and for the first time in her 61 years that she could remember, she began weeping uncontrollably.

What seemed like hours passed before she could stop sobbing long enough to speak. Finally, her throat hoarse from the weeping, she began to pray out loud.

"Dear God, I know you're there. I know because my husband told me you were. He's Billy Simpson, God," she asserted, just in case God hadn't made the connection, "and he appears to be in big trouble. He may be," the words stuck in her throat," . . . dead."

"All my life, God, I've taken pride in not needing You. I've boasted that I had an umbrella that could shelter me from any storm this life could bring. God, I was wrong. I can't handle this."

"I know You may not bring my Billy back. But God, I can't live without him without some help. I've never said this before, God, but my umbrella's leaking . . . . bad."

Ethel paused a moment, trying to recall just what it was she had heard Billy tell so many people huddled around that old coffee pot at the store to do to become "born over" or whatever it was that happened. She could remember them talking about being sinners. (She's never fancied herself one of those.) Now suddenly for the first time in her life, she realized that her very unwillingness to trust God with her life was the greatest sin of all . . . and she all but shouted at the top of her lungs, "God, I AM A SINNER. Please forgive me."

Then she remembered how a young man from down at Briscoe knelt down by that coffee pot one day, and prayed, asking Jesus into his heart. At the time, it seemed so childish. Now suddenly, Ethel's voice, quivering, yet with a strange sense of authority quietly invited Jesus to take over her life. "I don't know for sure what this means," she added, "but I know that's what I want. Dear Jesus, please take my tattered, self-righteous umbrella and change it for one that works. Amen."

Ethel Simpson was kneeling on a cold floor in a house that was nearing the freezing mark, yet a kind of warmth swept through her soul that she had never experienced in her life. It was like summertime had settled in her heart. She stood to her feet, somewhat amazed at the peace that had suddenly swept over her.

She slipped to her knees once more. "Lord," she prayed (for now He WAS her Lord), "I know it may be too late, and I know it may not be your will, but Lord, if it be possible, save my husband from dying so he can know that I've become a Christian at last. But Lord, if it's what's best, . . . You take him home . . . (the words seemed to stick in her throat again, but she went on) . . . . Now I know that, either way, one day I'll see him again."
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