The Old Fisherman
Our house was directly across the street from the clinic eentrance of John
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
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
'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 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 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.
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.
Author Unknown
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