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Commentary: An Easter miracle on 1300 East

We were as enchanted by that final miracle on a perfect day.

Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune Officer speeds through course and gets ready to hit the brakes in a hard, controlled braking manuever at the Salt Lake City Police Department's annual motor school for officers interested in assignment to the motorcycle squad. Students need to stop their motorcycle in 62 feet going 40 miles-per-hour. The two week long class trains at the Utah State Fairground. The purpose of the school is to make certain candidates are able to operate a motorcycle under sceanarios encountered by motor officers on patrol. The riders must prove their skill by navigating a variety of obstacle courses and pass a hard-controlled breaking exam.

Imagine a brilliant Easter morning, the sun rising in a crystal blue sky. Newly greening grass and sprouting daffodils counterpoint the still snow-clad mountains. There are magical days like this, sometimes enhanced by further wonders like the passing migration of swallow tail butterflies during the hunt for Easter eggs in the back yard.

A day like that can approach miraculous perfection. My family lived that perfect day many years ago in our modest bungalow on 1300 East near the University of Utah.

But this was Utah, and it was spring, and so the weather turned in mid-day. The sky blackened in the west, and a biting north wind kicked up. Looking out the front window onto the changing day, we saw a thinly clad, frail old lady shuffling slowly along the sidewalk. It was an unsettling sight. We opened our door and gently invited her in. She accepted, but with a detached and lackluster air.

Once inside the warm house, the lady sat docilely on our couch. She paid no attention to our two young boys and the family dog who all came in to confirm the harmless visitor. She either would not or could not tell us who she was or where she lived.

My thoughts ran to Robert Frost’s poem/story: The Death of the Hired Man. It is a sad tale of an old, worn out hand who returns to a farm family one cold night just in time to die sitting on a kitchen chair next to the potbellied stove.

My wife’s thoughts ran to more practical concerns, so she slipped off to consult the 911 operator who said they would “send someone over.” And so we settled in for a strangely quiet, darkening afternoon of fragmented conversation with a taciturn guest.

Finally, through the front window, we saw a motorcycle cop pull up. Under the shiny white and black helmet, he had mirrored sunglasses and a full mustache that highlighted a grim, square jaw. In his black leather jacket, shiny knee-high boots, and brown riding pants, he was a real life Buzz Lightyear. Obeying my wife’s quick nod, I dashed out to intercept the officer. He took a quick explanation and said brusquely, “OK, let’s meet the lady.” And with that, our front room was filled with over six feet of “get ‘er done” determination.

What followed was the day’s second-to-last miracle — a gentle, slow motion one. The officer sat down next to the lady, took her tiny hands in his tough ones, and talked to her like an old friend. In a few minutes it was determined that the lady was from a rest home a couple blocks from our house. She had apparently wandered out the open screen door during the warm morning and simply ambled her way up the sidewalk in lieu of her usual pacing in the rest home’s hallway.

Obviously, the woman had to get back, so I kept glancing between the motorcycle parked outside and our guest sitting hand-in-hand with Sir Galahad, anticipating what was going to be a very curious scene.

But God does not do circus, and so the last miracle of that Easter day was not a frail old lady in a billowing nightgown riding side-saddle down a busy street under storm clouds. It was, instead, exquisitely tender — one of Salt Lake’s finest walking down the sidewalk with his arm around a slight, shuffling woman wrapped in a borrowed blanket.

And somehow, as happens with many of life’s countless, gentle miracles, we forgot to take a picture, or even to get the officer’s name. We were as enchanted by that final miracle on a perfect day as we had been with the azure spring morning, the swarms of migrating butterflies, and our boys’ joyous hunt for colored eggs. And life was good, because God is good.

Russell C. Fericks

Russell Fericks is an attorney at the Salt Lake City law firm of Richards Brandt Miller Nelson.