Button and String

It was a rainy Sunday morning and the little girl was stuck at Grandma's house. Grandma didn't have cable or streaming or a DVD player and she didn't have video games. And she wouldn't let the girl use her Grandma's phone. If you told her you were bored, she'd say, “Go read a book.” Grandma had lots of books but they didn't have pictures, so the girl wasn't interested. And worst of all, Grandma made her go to church.

She hated church. People read stories that she didn't understand and they ate this bread that didn't taste like anything and drank this wine that was bitter. So that morning Grandma got her up early and made her breakfast—the breakfast was good; in fact, eating was the best thing about visiting Grandma. She made the girl get dressed—she had made her take a bath the night before; that was one of the worst things about visiting Grandma—and she fussed over the girl's hair. Then Grandma went to get dressed. And there being nothing good on the few channels Grandma's TV got, the girl went into Grandma's bedroom.

Grandma was in her bathroom with the door closed. The girl heard the hissing sound of a spray can and got a whiff of that stuff she sprayed on her hair. The girl was glad the door was closed because that stuff made it so you couldn't breathe. The girl sat at the little desk that Grandma called a vanity and started going through the drawers. That's how she found the jewelry box. In it were rings and necklaces and earrings. Some were made of silver, some of gold; some were plain and some ornamented; some contained stones: opals, amethysts, blue-fired diamonds. Within the jewelry box, she found a smaller box, covered with velvet. She popped it open to find an old button with a small loop of string through it. She looked for a ring or something else of value but there was nothing more in the tiny box. Just then Grandma came out of the bathroom.

Puzzled, the girl held up her discovery and said, “Grandma, what's this?”

The woman turned and looked at the button and string in the girl's hand and said, “Where did you find that?”

“In your jewelry box,” the girl said, a bit sheepishly. “It was in a little box.”

The Grandmother took the button with the string and a look crossed her face that the girl couldn't read. The woman sat on the side of the bed and stared at the button. There was a long silence that the girl sensed she must not interrupt. Finally her grandmother spoke.

“A long time ago, when I was a girl, my friends from work and I went to a dance. There was a war going on then and there were soldiers there. Boys, really, not much older than ourselves. My friends and I stood around talking about the young men in their uniforms and giggling. There was one boy who...I don't know...I just liked the look of him. I saw him but I wasn't sure if he saw me. I wanted to talk to him but I didn't know how. He went up to the refreshments table so I hurried over there, trying to look like I wasn't hurrying. There was a double line and I got into the one next to him. I wanted to say something but I didn't know what. I hoped he'd say something or look at me and smile or even sneeze so I could say, “God bless you.” Or anything. But he seemed preoccupied and looked straight ahead. We got to the head of the line and I knew it was now or never but I still didn't know what to say. Then he reached for a cup of punch and I saw it.

“'You're going to lose that button,' I said.

“'Huh?' he said. He looked down his uniform shirt and then at me.

“'On your cuff,' I said, pointing. 'The button's coming loose.'

“”He lifted his wrist to look, careful not to spill his punch. 'Oh, yeah. Thanks,' he said.

“'I could sew it on for you,' I said.

“'Okay,' he said. And he smiled. So we went to some chairs and I pulled a little sewing kit out of my purse and as I sewed the button back on, we talked. We talked about the music and our favorite songs and we talked about our favorite movies and we talked about our favorite books. And when I finished sewing the button onto his sleeve, I buttoned the cuff. And he turned his hand over to look at it and at the same time he took my hand. I don't know if he noticed it but I noticed it. We continued to talk and hold hands. And when the dance was over, we walked and talked into the night.

“We passed a bank and I looked up and saw this big clock. It was after midnight. And I said, 'Oh, my God! My father will kill me! He'll never let me see you again.'

“He suddenly looked alarmed and said, 'I must see you again. Because tomorrow at 0700 hours, I gotta be back on base. I'm shipping out at 0900!'

“I started to cry because I realized I really might not ever see him again. He put his arm around me and comforted me and calmed me down and then we talked some more. We made a decision and he walked me home. Luckily, my parents were asleep.”

The grandmother stopped and looked at her granddaughter. Was she setting a bad example when it came to obeying her parents? But what she had done, she had done. She took a deep breath and resumed her story.

“The next morning, we met very early and we talked about what we wanted to do all that day. It was a big decision and we were both trying to look at it in the light of a new day. Finally, just before it closed, we went to the clerk's office and got our license. And then he said, 'Come with me.' We turned and went back the way we came. He was looking all around and muttering to himself and then he saw what he was looking for. We went up to the door of this house and started knocking. I stood next to him, wondering what he was doing and I looked to the window to see if anyone was coming and I saw what he had seen earlier: a sign that said, 'Notary Public.'”

“What's that?” the girl said.

“It's a person who witnesses things,” said the grandmother. “And eventually we heard someone coming down some stairs inside the house. And suddenly, knowing the notary would probably be angry at being disturbed at dinner time, I looked down and bent over and picked up the evening paper from his welcome mat. A man came to the door, and there we were, standing on his porch, holding out his newspaper to him. We told him why we were there and he was very reluctant to help us. There was no waiting period in our state, but still we had just met 24 hours ago. But we found out that the notary was once in the same branch of the service as my boyfriend—well, fiance—and when he heard how he was shipping out the next morning, he was sympathetic. He thought a while and then he and his wife and his son, who was home from college, witnessed us getting married. Only when we got to the part about the ring, we stopped. Even though we had talked about doing this all day, we had forgotten to get a ring.

“My groom was going through his pockets and I went through my purse. We couldn't find anything. And then, seeing the evening paper on the table, my soon-to-be husband pulled out his pocket knife and cut the string off of the newspaper. He started to tie a loop and then he stopped, took his knife and cut off the button I had sewn on his cuff. He threaded the string through it, tied it, cut off the excess and slipped it on my finger. And, repeating after the notary, he said, 'I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you.' Then he added, 'And I promise before God, I will see you again.' And we kissed.”

There was a long pause, Then, quietly, not wanting to break the spell, the little girl said, “And then what?”

The grandmother came out of her reverie and her face colored a little. “We found a place to stay that night and in the morning, we ate breakfast, our last meal together. We walked to the base, we kissed and cried and I went home and...well, the rest of it wasn't very pleasant. My parents were very angry and the notary had sent off the paperwork so I didn't have anything to show them that night or for several weeks.

“And then I never heard from my husband. I followed the war news and I met the postman everyday, looking for a letter from him but it never came. And then I had your mother.”

The little girl's eyes grew round.

“The war lasted a long time. And I got no word from him. So I held onto the words he spoke when he gave me this ring. It was a sign of our vows and his promise. So I hung onto it. People made fun of me for wearing this.” She looked at the old button and frayed string. “And my parents didn't believe in him or his promise. They thought he had fed me a fairy tale. At times, it did feel like a fairy tale. I didn't even have a picture of him. There were times when I would start to forget what he looked like. But I knew he loved me and I knew what he said and I knew that he meant it. So I clung to his promise.

“Then the war was over and I waited some more. And one day a man knocked at the door. He was in a uniform, but he was very thin and I didn't recognize him. And he told me that he was a friend of my husband. They had been in the same outfit. They were captured by the enemy shortly after they had gone into the field. They were held as prisoners of war. And they were tortured.

“I became aware that I had grasped the button with my right hand as I listened to this and was twisting it until the string was cutting into my finger. So I made myself stop. I didn't want to break the string.

“The soldier told me how, at night, as they lay in their cells, my husband had spoken to him about me. After the war, the prisoners were released and this man, as soon as he got to the states, looked me up. It was hard because he had no address, just the town. But now he was here to tell me that my husband...”The woman faltered. Her eyes filled. The little girl held her breath. “My husband was in the hospital on the other side of the country.

“Well, of course, I cried and I hugged the soldier. And my mother cried and made him a big meal. And my father went to the phone and that night I flew out to see my husband for the first time since the day we got married.

“He had been very sick when the prisoners were liberated. He had wounds that hadn't been properly treated and a high fever. They said he couldn't even think or talk straight when they got him into the military hospital.They thought he would die. So as soon as his friend was released, he went to find me.

“When I got there, my husband was very thin and pale. But when he saw me, his face lit up and we kissed and cried. I told him about your mother and showed him her pictures and we kissed and cried some more. He saw the button and string around my finger and said, 'Have you worn that the whole time?' And I said I did. And I stayed until the nurse made me leave.

“The next day I went to see the chaplain and we had a proper wedding, as I had promised my father. The doctors and the nurses and the patients all put in some money and got me this ring,” said the grandmother, indicating the gold band on her left hand. “But I saved the button and string because when he was gone, this was the sign of your grandfather's word and promise. And this is what got me through his absence.”

The grandmother handed the worn button on the frayed string back to the little girl, who stared at it intently and then reverently put it in the little velvet box, snapped it shut and put it in the jewelry box, a treasure among baubles.

It was not only the way the girl saw the button and string that changed. Her grandmother, too, seemed transformed and the granddaughter thought that maybe she could see the young girl in the story in the face of the old woman. The pictures in the hall seemed sharper and brighter as she passed them, especially the fat baby that had been her mother and the skinny young soldier who had been her grandfather.

The rain had stopped and the world was dripping with new meanings. Everything and every person they saw seemed to have a hidden story and the little girl longed to hear them. Even at church where she heard again of the story of Jesus' last supper with his friends before he went off to die for them. She listened again to how he held up bread and said, “This is my body...do this in remembrance of me.” And he held up the cup of wine and said, “This is my blood...do this in remembrance of me. I will not drink the fruit of the vine until that day I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.” And a realization hit her. She looked at her grandma excitedly. “It's a promise!” she whispered. The grandmother smiled back at her.

And then the people all said, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” And at the words a shiver went up her spine.

And when she went up to the altar with her grandmother, the priest handed her the pale disk and said, “The body of Christ.” She looked at it intently. It looked the same. She ate it. It tasted the same. But she felt different. Because for her the word had become flesh.

First preached on July 20, 2003. It has been updated.