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The Old Fisherman
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 Our house was directly across the street from the entrance to a clinic. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening, as I fixed supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful-looking old man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. Most appalling, his face was 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 until morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. "I guess it's my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..." |
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| 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." He held up a brown-paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him for 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 that 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. Every other sentence was prefaced with 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. |
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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 old 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 to 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. |
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| Over 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 be 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 how little money he had made these gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor had made after the fisherman left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful-looking old man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by putting up such people." And maybe we did, 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. |
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| 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 bloom. But to 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 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. He won't mind starting in this small, ugly body." But that's behind us now. Long ago in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand! |
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| 生字： shriveled(adj.)滿是皺紋的 appalling(adj.)令人毛骨悚然的 lopsided(adj.)不平衡的 hesitated(v.)遲疑猶豫 crippled(adj.)殘廢的 complaint(n.)抱怨 preface(v.)以什麼為開始 kale(n.)甘藍類蔬菜 remembrance(n.)致意、問候 chrysanthemum(n.)菊科花 dented(adj.)凹陷的 |
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