Net Miles Of Smiles

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I know 10 things about you:

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1)      You are reading this.

2)      You are human.

3)      You cant say the letter “P” without separating your lips.

4)       You just attempted to do it.

6)       You are laughing at yourself.

7)       You have a smile on your face and you skipped no. 5

8)       You just checked to see if there is a no. 5

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Comments (0) Apr 26 2012

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The Rented Room
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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 outpatients at the
clinic.

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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.

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“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.

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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.”

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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…”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other
sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing.

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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.

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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.

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He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus,
haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said,

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“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.”

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I told him he was welcome to come again.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these and knowing
how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

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When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a


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Comments (0) Mar 25 2012