If you read my last blog you will know these friends are the salt of the earth too..oh so lovely. There are such gems there and I'm so glad my girls now in their 20s and 30s grew up with these sweet, precious people. My girls were taught that we can be friends with all ages!
The pic below? This is our buddy, he is one of the sweetest things ever as perhaps you have already read in previous blogs. He does not have the use of one of his hands, is in a wheel chair, deaf in one ear and only sees out of one eye. He has a speech impediment. This precious guy has no bitterness, is always helping others in the home. I walk in his room and he is making his bed with his one arm from his wheelchair. At lunchtime? He makes sure everyone has their terry bibs (with his one arm). I was watching him put his bib on, and he opened the velcro with his teeth, placed the bib around and clasped it back with that one hand.
He says... Heeeeyyyyyyy in the most darling voice. I'm not sure what happened to our buddy, perhaps a car accident or stroke? He has a photo album in his room one of his relatives put together for him that shows his wife of young, a son etc. What happened? I just don't know...
Our buddy shows no bitterness, only wants to help and encourage others. My heart is so blessed to just be around our buddy. He needed some freshening in the diaper department and points to the area as he rolls his wheel chair to the nursing area. I see him wait patiently in line to be freshened near the nurses station.
Sometimes the best thing we can do for our friends is just be with them. I stand with him as he waits and as I stand I just put my hand on our buddy's shoulder. Just stand with the comfort of a warm hand on his shoulder...Isn't that what we really want or need sometimes? Just having a hand on a shoulder? Having someone just with us? Just being with a person? A touch? Maybe a cup of coffee...I remember when I was young and would just sit next to my Italian grandpa and we would watch tv together...He just liked me there with him.
I also met a new friend, Alma. Alma is from Chicago and is a lovely Christian lady, tall and large framed stature with baby blue eyes, her hair, straight white and cut in a short casual cut. She tells me she was named after a Christian missionary who stayed in their home. They hosted many a missionary she tells me...I mention the John and Betty Stamm, the missionaries who were beheaded in China. (The story haunts me) Elizabeth Elliot has shared that the Stamm's were in her home for dinner not far before the horrible and grave event happened (the Boxer rebellion). A baby girl was left behind....Priscilla. Mrs. Stamm had left her baby on a bed with a note..Can you imagine? A saint saw to it the baby was saved, the baby wound up in the states with relatives who adopted her. I've often wondered about this baby....the story intrigues me and I would have or still would like to speak with Priscilla or write her. I've tried to find her, and it seems she writes scientific articles and has not communicated with those from China. Breaks my heart the entire thing. Just breaks my heart. Perhaps she is a private person and I can relate to that. Perhaps you would like to look the Stamm's story up? It's really just unbelievable what happened. So very heartbreaking.
Alma was a sweetheart and was such an encouragement but upon leaving I turn and see her crying. I say...
Oh Alma, you're crying...
She shares that it is so hard to know where you came from and where you are now... I remind her God is with her, He already is. That is what Elizabeth Elliot wrote me one time when I was carrying Rebecca and on bedrest with a bit of beta strep.
These older women...they are saints of God friends. We need to respect them. We need to listen to them. Sometimes I catch a whiff of how they must feel when women usually in their 30s will sometimes ask advice etc....I take the time to answer and many times not a mere thank you or a fellow hand of friendship and I never ever want to do that to anyone. Ever. It's a mighty bad feeling. I'm not sure if it's the culture or what but we have some generations, seems the ones I see are in their 30s and 40s and it's not the most thankful generation I've ever seen. How old are you Amelia? I am 53 years young I am. : ) Maybe I'm from the old school (in a good way I hope) but I think that is the BEST school I do. Wouldn't you agree? Isn't the The School of Christ never-changing? What ever happened to thankfulness? What ever happened to kindness? Manners? I hope we will be like the one who was thankful not the other nine.
Today has been an awesome day with my youngest, at 20, Rebecca. My little blonde haired blue-eyed gal. Oh the German half sure shines through our baby girl. It's like talking to my uncle way back from 1938 when he was young, a budding young actor from Rice...Looking at Becs sometimes is as if my uncle came back out of time and visited me in the kitchen here.
Rebecca and I talked about the author, Scott F. Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda...oh so tragic. She shows me her pics, as I utter, Oh Rebecca, that is just sooo sad. So very sad...
We talk of Hemingway too...we look up his wife too. Neither of us get Hemingway. We talk of E.E. Cummings...his writing styles, and how some of his writing we must use caution with some of it, he get's over the top moral-wise. No-thanks, if you know what i mean. We certainly don't need to entertain our minds with that. But most of it is very nice from what I've read. Lovely actually.
Well, I just wanted to blog some thoughts here...Just some encouragements and exhortations from a 53 year young lady gleaning from life and sharing here.
So happy and thankful to those who take the time to read here. God bless you!
At present? I'm listening to:
Tonight? Marianna is making a veggie-egg (from our happy hens!) casserole and I'm making fresh broccoli as a side. Becs is planning on our family viewing the old movie, Philadelphia Story. : ) Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant too? How neat is that? : )
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| Our precious little Guisseppe |
P.S. Please continue to pray for Guisseppe's eye, (above) he was out of his little bed more today mosieing around. So that is a good sign. Such a little man...
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