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The FISHERMAN and His Treatment
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 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 had 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 pause 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 4:00 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.
~Author Unknown~
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