Quote from Forum Archives on August 20, 2003, 12:07 am

Posted by: bigguyhereagain <bigguyhereagain@...>

 <>< The Old Fisherman ><>

 

Our house was directly across the street
from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs
 and rented the upstairs rooms to out
patients at the clinic.

 

One summer evening as I was fixing supper,
there was a knock at the door. I opened it
to see a truly awful looking man. Why, he's
hardly taller than my eight-year-old, I thought
as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body.
But the appalling thing was his face--lopsided
from swelling, red and raw.

 

Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening.
I've come to see if you've a room for just one night.
I came for a treatment this morning from the
eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning.
" He told me he'd been hunting for a room since
noon but with no success, no one seemed to have
a room. "I guess it's my face...I know it looks
terrible, but my doctor says with a few more
treatments..." For a moment I hesitated,
but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep
in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves
early in the morning."

 

I told him we would find him a bed,
but to rest on the porch. I went inside
and finished getting supper. When we were
ready, I asked the old man if he would join us.

 

"No thank you. I have plenty." And he held
up a brown paper bag.

 

When I had finished the dishes, I went out
on the porch to talk with him a few minutes.
It didn't take a long time to see that this
old man had an oversized heart crowded into
that tiny body. He told me he fished for a
 living to support his daughter, her five children,
and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled
from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way
of complaint; in fact, every other sentence
 was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing.
He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease,
 which was apparently a form of skin cancer.
He thanked God for giving him the strength to
 keep going.

 

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the
children's room for him.

 

When I got up in the morning, the bed
linens were neatly folded and the little
man was out on the porch. He refused
breakfast, but just before he left for
 his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great
favor, he said, "Could I please come back
and stay the next time I have a treatment?
I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine
 in a chair." He paused a moment and then
added, "Your children made me feel at home.
Grownups are bothered by my face, but
children don't seem to mind."

 

I told him he was welcome to come again.

 

On his next trip he arrived a little after
seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought
a big fish and a quart of the largest
oysters I had ever seen. He
said he had shucked them that morning
before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh.
I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I
wondered what time he had to get up in
order to do this for us.

 

In the years he came to stay overnight
with us there was never a time that he
did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables
from his garden. Other times we received
packages in the mail, always by special delivery;
fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young
spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.
Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail
these,and knowing how little money he had
made the gifts doubly precious. When I
received these little remembrances,
I often thought of a comment our next-door
neighbor made after he left that first morning.

 

"Did you keep that awful looking man last night?
I turned him away! You can lose roomers by
putting up such people!"

 

Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.
But oh! If only they could have known him,
perhaps their illnesses would have been easier
to bear. I know our family always will be grateful
to have known him; from him we learned what it
was to accept the bad without complaint and the
good with gratitude to God.

 

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a
greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers,
we came to the most beautiful one of all, a
golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.
But to my great surprise, it was growing in
an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to
myself, If this were my plant, I'd put it in
 the loveliest container I had! My friend
changed my mind.

 

"I ran short of pots," she explained,
"and knowing how beautiful this one would be,
I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in
this old pail. It's just for a little while,
till I can put it out in the garden."

 

She must have wondered why I laughed so
delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.

 

"Here's an especially beautiful one,"
 God might have said when he came to
the soul of the sweet old fisherman.
"He won't mind starting in this small body."

 

All this happened long ago -- and now, in
God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.

 

<><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><

 

<>< An Unexpected Moment ><>

 

By Sara L. Henderson

 

It was hard to watch her fail. Physically she
was growing thinner and more stooped. Mentally
she was losing her ability to sort out reality.
Initially, my grandmother had railed angrily
against the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
that were eroding who she had always been.
Eventually, the anger gave way to frustration,
and then resignation.

 

My grandmother had always been a strong woman.
She had a career before it was common for women
to have careers. She was independent. In her
eighties, she was still dragging out her
stepladder every spring to wash all the windows
in her house. She was also a woman with a deep faith
in God.

 

As my grandmother lost her ability to live alone,
my father moved her into his home. Grandchildren and
great-grandchildren were often in the house.
She seemed to enjoy being surrounded by the noise and
activity of a large, extended family.

 

As she slipped further away from us mentally,
my grandmother would occasionally have moments
of lucidity when she knew where she was and
recognized everyone around her. We never knew
what prompted those moments, when they would
occur or how long they would last.

 

Toward the end of her life she became convinced
that her mother had knit everything she owned.
"Mama knit my boots," she would tell strangers,
holding up a foot clad in galoshes. "Mama knit
my coat," she would say with a vacant smile as
she zipped up her raincoat. Soon we were
putting on her boots for her and helping her
zip up her coat.

 

During my grandmother's last autumn with us,
we decided to take a family outing. We packed
up the cars and went to a local fair for a day of
caramel apples, craft booths and carnival rides.
Grandma loved flowers,so my dad bought her a rose.
She carried it proudly through the fair,
stopping often to breathe in its fragrance.

 

Grandma couldn't go on the carnival rides,
of course, so she sat on a bench close by and
waited while the rest of the family rode. Her
moments of lucidity were now a thing of the past
having eluded her for months but she seemed content
to sit and watch as life unfolded around her.
While the youngest members of the family ran,
laughing to get in line at the next ride, my
father took my grandmother to the nearest bench. A
sullen-looking young woman already occupied the bench,
but said she wouldn't mind sharing the bench.
"Mama knit my coat," my grandmother
told the young woman as she sat down.

 

We didn't let my grandmother out of our sight,
and when we came back to the bench to get her,
the young woman was holding the rose. She looked
as though she had been crying. "Thank you for
sharing your grandmother with me," she said.
Then she told us her story. She had decided that
day was to be her last on Earth. In deep despair
and feeling she had nothing to live for, she was
planning to go home and commit suicide. While she
sat on that bench with Grandma, as the carnival
noises swirled around them, she found herself
pouring out her troubles.

 

"Your grandmother listened to me," the young
woman informed us. "She told me about a time
in her own life, during the Depression, when she
had lost hope. She told me that God loved me and
that He would watch over me and would help me
make it through my problems. She gave me
this rose. She told me that my life would unfold,
just like this rose, and that I would be surprised
by its beauty. She told me my life was a
gift.She said she would be praying for me."

 

We stood, dumbfounded, as she hugged my grandmother
and thanked her for saving her life. Grandma just
smiled a vacant smile and patted her arm.
As the young woman turned to leave,
she waved good-bye to us. Grandma
waved back and then turned to look at us,
still standing in amazement."Mama knit my hat," she said.

 

><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>  ><>

 

Have a Blessed Day

Dave and Barbara

 

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