Print Page - a touching story! long but good

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 outpatients 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,
shrivelled 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 till
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 meanwhile 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
finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few
minutes. It didn't take long 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 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. And 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 fish 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.

Remember me, O God, When I am troubled in my heart,
and when it seems that You and I...are sort of far apart.
When I am feeling lonely and discouraged over strife;
and everything is difficult, according to this life.
Remember me and help me God...for I am weak and frail.
And when my lamp of faith grows dim, I falter...and I fail.
I want to walk beside You and to hold Your guiding hand...
because there are so many things I do not understand.
I love You God, with all my soul, wherever I may be.
Humbly I petition You, to please remember me.

Ps 106:4 -
Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy
people: O visit me with thy salvation;

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