Kindness in a small world

[Charean]

This was sent to me... thought you all could use a lift.

■The Old Fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the
clinic entrance of Johns 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.

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 a. m. and I wondered what time he had to get up 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. The LORD
does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at
the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the
heart." (1 Samuel 16:7b)
■

[ 04-23-2002, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Charean ]

[Downunda]

Awesome... it's all that needs saying.

BTW Charaen, thanks for the info reg. your license test.

Great story Charean!
Thank you for sharing it.
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