Les

(One for each Taylor kid, done, but I think I’ll redo the fire one in Silkie and the Sumoko that gave it that orange so that all eight come from the same yarn family.)

The reason I threw in the detail yesterday that Kurt’s brother-in-law Les had raised his family in my hometown was that there was a story to be told there. Today I’ll tell it.

Les passed on younger than one might hope for, and Kurt’s wife coped with the loss of her brother by wishing to somehow find out the long-unanswerable details: years earlier, in his moment of great need, who had come to his rescue?  Someone had, hadn’t they? Les thought so, but he was pretty hazy about it all and exactly what had happened to him the day he’d been in a terrible car accident.  Les had testified at the trial of the other driver that, Your Honor, my brain’s not too clear yet from it all and I don’t rightly remember…

It had been years ago.  And now he was gone.   Which court was the trial even held in?  She sent out letters, but there seemed no way to know what she wished for.

My in-laws came out here visiting around that time, and when Kurt’s wife found out they were from the DC area, she mentioned her brother’s name. Why, yes, of course we knew Les! Then she mentioned how very much she wished she knew more about what had happened that day.

There had been a stake leadership meeting that day. A stake is a collection of wards.  My father-in-law had been at that meeting.

One man had come in very late, in very intense emotion, needing to tell what he’d just seen and what he’d just done.  On his way to the meeting, someone had run a red light and had hit the car in front of him so hard that the other driver was ejected from his VW Bug and he was lying in the street, fading in and out as this man had pulled over and run to him.  He thought he might recognize the man as a fellow Mormon, although they weren’t in the same ward and he wasn’t sure. He asked him if he wanted a blessing, got the faint answer yes, administered to him, attended to him, and waited with him for the ambulance to arrive.

And then he went on to that meeting, hoping terribly hard that Les would be okay.

And so Les had pulled through.  One can only imagine how much it had strengthened him not to be alone there as he lay so badly injured in the street.

Les’s sister had wanted so dearly to know: who had helped him? Who had been his Good Samaritan? There had been someone, hadn’t there?  And what exactly had happened?

There was only one person alive by then who could possibly have answered her questions and to reassure her that someone had indeed been present for her brother in his hour of great need.

And, having flown across the country to visit us, he just happened to be sitting by her right there at church.