Janie: A keeper who moves through illusion to faith

Introducing Janie 1

Janie came into my life soon after I joined my second husband’s Irish Catholic family. Everyone called her Aunt Janie, except for my mother-in-law who called her “Sainted Janie.” Along with stories of her goodness came stories of her special sense of humor. My husband’s favorite story about Janie was titled by everyone in the family who told it; “The Disability Sticker.” It went like this:

Janie is known at her church for going to great lengths to perform acts of kindness without thought for her own convenience, but she found herself with a problem when she took on the task of driving disabled church members to their doctors’ appointments.
At the doctors’ offices, there were few parking spaces except for cars with disability stickers. Since Janie didn’t have a sticker, she and her patients had great difficulty finding places to park, and they often arrived late to appointments,

Janie’s solution was to go to her doctor and request a disability sticker for her car. She carefully explained her mission with the disabled churchgoers. Her doctor listened, but refused Janie’s request. He knew that Janie didn’t like to exercise, and he said that he was concerned for her health. From his point of view, Janie needed to walk more.
Thinking that her doctor had totally missed the point and seeing injustice in this, Janie made her own disability sticker. She did this quite carefully, using the cardboard back of a pantyhose package and a blue magic marker to make it into a facsimile of a disability sticker. She attached this to her car mirror whenever she delivered her patients to their doctors’ offices. She successfully used the sticker for many months, until one day she came out to find a $250 ticket for using a counterfeit sticker stuck underneath her windshield wiper.

With summons and sticker in hand, Janie went to the police station to explain her situation. When she got to the head of the line, Janie’s short stature made it necessary for her to look up to see the policeman who sat behind a high counter. The policeman looked down and saw a small woman with a softly rounded form. Her wispy white hair fell softly on her neck and curled up at the ends. She had pale white skin, pink cheeks, and clear blue eyes. She was dressed in blue and white, with a large cross hanging from her neck. He probably knew right away that he was at a disadvantage.

Janie placed the summons and the sticker on the counter and told the police officer of her plight. He told her that what she had done was illegal and that she would have to pay the fine. Politely she told him that she couldn’t pay the fine. Sternly he told her,

“We don’t negotiate here. You’ll have to pay the fine, lady.”

Janie smiled at him sweetly and waited patiently for him to change his mind. They went back and forth, until the police officer realized that with a line of people forming behind Janie, and with her showing no signs of budging, he might as well give up, rather than look like he was taking advantage of a gentle old woman. Exasperated, he asked Janie what she could pay. She told him that she thought she could manage ten dollars. Not knowing what else to do he agreed to take what she offered. Janie paid him the ten dollars and, as he got busy with someone else, she picked up her forged sticker and returned to business as usual.

When I met Janie, I told her that I had heard this story. Smiling, she said that she now has her own disability sticker. Somehow, she can’t quite remember how, she ended up with two stickers. She gave one of them to a friend from her church group who isn’t quite ready for one yet, but drives disabled people who need her to have one. On Sunday mornings, Janie’s friend uses her sticker to get them a place near to the Church. Janie uses her sticker on Sundays to park near the restaurant where they have their breakfasts after church is over. For Janie, if disobedience is needed for service, she is clear about what to do.

I also had heard painful stories of Janie’s life, told not with sadness or judgment, but with warmth and understanding. These stories were about her prominent St. Louis family who denied their alcoholism and her life as a single mother struggling with alcoholism herself, especially after the violent deaths of two of her children.

From my distance, I couldn’t imagine how she had survived let alone found humor and warmth to share with others. My husband and his siblings told me that when they were young, she was the only grown up around who looked them straight in the eye and listened to what they had to say. When others described the chaos of her life they said that misery slid off her, and she radiated goodness no matter what came into her life.

Keep Posted for more about Janie.