Miss Peggy's Testimony

When I was a young girl growing up on Martindale Boulevard, my father served as the Bishop of our church. During this time my parents opened their home to an elderly member in the ward. Her name was Peggy Long, but everyone called her Miss Peggy. She was deaf, mentally challenged, didn’t have any family, and had been a ward of the state all of her life. My mother didn’t have the heart to see her go into a nursing home, so we ended up taking care of her for many years.

When she first moved in, Miss Peggy and I were just about the same height. She wasn’t exactly the aunt or grandma type, and was much too old to be my sister, so for me she became kind of like a life size doll. Every night I would pick out the slip, dress, and apron that she would wear the next day. In the morning I would comb her fine gray hair back into a ponytail with a dollop of Dippity-Do, twisting it into a perfect bun secured with bobby pins, which was my favorite thing to do. After she dressed herself, I would help her with her hose and elastics and then lace up her shoes.

Because she was deaf, we would write questions on a pad of paper and she would answer us back in a loud voice. Sometimes she would get mad at someone: One day she took the broom to our neighbor’s elderly father, Joe; and although she worshiped my dad and kept a picture of him on her dresser, if she got mad at him the picture promptly went face down.

Forty years have passed now, but my memories of Miss Peggy are still vivid—especially memories of fast and testimony meetings. As if it were yesterday, I can see her sitting in her usual pew in the front of the chapel by the organ. Every first Sunday of the month she would sit eagerly waiting, with pocketbook and lacey handkerchief in hand, to stand and bear her testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. The deacons stood ready to pass the microphone, but she always started without it, wanting to be the very first to proclaim her testimony in a loud shaky voice. Sometimes she even started before it was time and someone would have to tell her to wait. I hate to admit that on those occasions all the kids at church, myself included, would giggle quietly in our seats.

Now that I’m older I’ve come to realize that Miss Peggy was a powerful example to me. Her testimony is the one testimony I remember from my childhood. I appreciate her eagerness to stand and share something so personal. If only we could be like Miss Peggy, ever ready to tell the world that God lives and Christ is our Savior, who would be touched and what lives could be changed by the Spirit testifying, just as it testified through Miss Peggy?

I will always be grateful to my parents who had compassion and a willingness to serve her. But looking back and reflecting, it was really Miss Peggy who was serving us.