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THE
OLD DENTED BUCKET
Our
house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John s
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 8-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped,
shriveled body. 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
over sized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for
a living to support his daughter, her 5 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 7 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 3 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)
Friends
are very special. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.
They lend an ear and they share a word of praise. Show your friends how
much you care. Pass this on, and brighten someone's day.
Nothing
will happen if you do not decide to pass it along. The only thing that
will happen if you DO pass it on is that some-one else might enjoy the
story.
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