"This man had stopped his bike ride and spent a significant period of time trying to express two words that were not any benefit to him at all. He simply wanted to help."

Larissa Kaye Batten (llbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.  

"Li-zon," the man said.

"Pardon me?" I asked.

"Li-zon," he said more emphatically.

"I’m sorry, I can’t understand you," I replied.

I was wary. I stood on the beach with this man -- a tall, older stranger. He stood next to his purple bicycle and spoke again.

"Li-zon," he said.

By this time, I was frustrated. He had something he seemed bent on saying, and for the life of me I could not understand him.

It was broad daylight. Beautiful daylight, in fact. Eighty sunny degrees in early November. The sea air filled me with sunshine. My black Labrador Winchester ran around, and the lifeguard with whom I had been chatting moments earlier was 15 or 20 yards behind me. I could not understand this man who had interrupted my conversation with the lifeguard to repeat over and over one word I could not understand.

I do not know why I had broken off my conversation with the lifeguard to walk over to this man. I guess I could just tell by the way he had stopped his ride to look over at us that he needed to say something.

"Li-zon," he repeated.

I wondered then if he might be drunk. I am not comfortable around drunk people, and I would have walked away if the man had been intoxicated. But he was not.

"Li-zon," he said.

Maybe he was mentally retarded. But he was not.

"Li-zon." For some reason, he kept his eyes focused on the lifeguard and the lifeguard’s truck parked on the beach. Maybe he needed help from the lifeguard.

"Do you need something from the lifeguard?" I asked.

"Li-zon!"

Then I saw it. I saw the way the left corner of his lips drew downward, and I knew then why I could not understand him. He was a stroke survivor.

I have worked with stroke survivors in various nursing homes, and patience is vital. But I know there are times when no amount of patience will help me to understand the words I am hearing.

"Li-zon."

"I’m sorry. I just can’t understand you," I said. "Are you saying "lifeguard"?"

He was not.

"Li-zon."

"Lifeguard? Are you talking about the lifeguard?" I wanted so much to understand him. He needed to tell me something, and I wanted to show him compassion. I did not pity the man; I simply wanted to hear him. I wanted to help. I wanted him to know he was not alone.

"Just a minute," I said. "I’ll ask the lifeguard to come over." I turned around and walked back to the lifeguard.

"I think he’s had a stroke," I told the guard. "I feel really bad for him. I just can’t understand what he’s telling me." Still, I did not pity him. I felt full of empathy. I am a big talker, and I cannot imagine not having the words to express myself.

"Okay," the lifeguard said. Then he walked back to the man, who could not have been more than 60 years old.

It was only when I stood back from the man and the lifeguard that I was able to see who I had been talking to. The man was not so very old. He was dressed simply. He wore khaki slacks, a shirt of some sort, and I did not catch the rest until later.

It did not take the lifeguard very long to understand.

"Li-zon," the man said, pointing to the lifeguard’s vehicle.

"Thank you," the lifeguard said.

A minute or so later, the lifeguard walked back over to me.

"He said my lights are on," the lifeguard said.

"Oh my God," I said.

I was speechless.

"Wow," I said.

This man had stopped his bike ride and spent a significant period of time trying to express two words that were not any benefit to him at all. He simply wanted to help.

The lifeguard turned back to face the man just as the man dropped something. The lifeguard went over to help, but by then the man had taken his slow journey down to the ground to pick up his watch.

The lifeguard went over to the man’s bicycle and helped the man to put his watch around the handlebar. As he did this, the lifeguard rang the bicycle bell a few times. I have seen the same kind of bell before. I had one when I was a child. The man’s big purple bicycle had a child’s bell on it.

The man imitated the lifeguard. He rang the bell himself a few times. Then he mustered up all his energy, tried to make the connections between his brain and his muscles, and slowly, very slowly, lifted his left leg just enough to get himself back onto the bicycle.

The man started to ride off, and I called after him.

"Goodbye," I said.

He did not say goodbye. Instead, he lifted his right arm off the handlebar, and, as he rode away from us, held his arm and hand up in a salute of goodbye.

I only saw the back of his hand wave as he left. Then I saw his socks. He wore bright red socks. Bright red socks on his big purple bicycle with the bell. A man who only weeks or months or years ago might have been addressing a few hundred people at a business conference. A man who not so long ago might have been reading a newspaper article aloud to his wife.

He had been reduced to a life beyond words.

And, in the wake of the crossroads of the journey of the man, the lifeguard, and me, I felt a love beyond words.

This man had stopped his bicycle and tried over and over and over, and over again, to tell the lifeguard that his car lights were one. Even when the man knew I would not understand, he did not stop. He needed to know the lifeguard’s car battery would not die because the car lights were left on.

After the man left, I chatted a bit more with the lifeguard. But I was not the same. On my way home, as my Labrador and I headed for our own car, I remembered the only other time I have felt a love beyond words in response to someone else’s speechlessness – or miraculous lack thereof.

Opa, my maternal grandfather, my dear, dear, grandfather, had a stroke some time before Granny passed away. He could no longer talk, and all the efforts of his therapist, his nurse, his wife, and the love of his family could not bring back anything more than sounds. There were no longer any words we could understand, only a love that easily transcended his new life without words.

We tried everything, but he was speechless.

The day we buried Granny in our family’s Jewish tradition, we sat underneath a tent in the cemetery. I cannot describe the loss I felt; I can only thank God all these years later that Granny and Opa are as close to me as ever, that their spirits live on in my soul.

Granny and Opa, who had lost almost every single relative in the Holocaust, were infinitely close. We did not know how Opa would survive without her. We did not know how he would make it through the funeral. He did not even have the words to speak his grief.

But Opa surprised us all that day, and I will remember God’s grace on this day for the rest of my own days and perhaps long after I, too, have gone.

Opa had not spoken in so long.

It was time to recite the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish.

Our grieved voices began together.

Then, among the tide of words of the mourners, one voice rose as clearly, as simply, as proudly, and as definitively as Opa’s grief itself. In perfect Hebrew. With perfect grace.

Opa spoke the Hebrew Mourner’s Kaddish prayer fluidly, fluently, abundantly, and with the grace of God.

In English, the prayer reads like this:

Opa never spoke any understandable words again after that day. Opa never even spoke any after that prayer.

But when it was time to pray his Hebrew prayer of mourning for dear Granny, Opa found the words – and stole our breath and hearts away.

God bless the man on the beach. God bless Opa and Granny. God bless all who do not have the words to speak. And God bless all of us who need to learn how to listen.

The grace of God is worth hearing. God does not always speak in words.

But with or without words, God always speaks his grace.

I am 33 years old now, and until this day I never truly heard the English translation of the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Perhaps then we humans do not have the words to "utter" grace.

But God in his infinite love is always present to bestow it.

Amen.

* This Hebrew phonetic translation of the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish is adapted from http://www.mnemotrix.com/kaddish/kadwords.html. Please visit the website to read the prayer in Hebrew.

** This English translation of the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish is adapted from http://www.mnemotrix.com/kaddish/kadwords.html.

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