Shade Tree Wisdom 1/19/12

          What a fine morning for the walk, cool, wind-still, for the most part, quiet. Not even my faithful dog came by.  Probably sleeping and dreaming of past pleasures.  But nice for me.

          So after breakfast and our morning devotion, I tackled something that needed to be tackled, bringing my address book up to date.  It needed doing, for there have been many changes, some written in, some pasted with a name sticker, and some so faded they were nearly unreadable.

          While I was busy doing that, I remembered a letter someone had sent once about visiting an aunt in a nursing home.  It was an aunt she knew, but saw only now and then at some family reunion.  But suddenly, this aunt ended up in a nursing home nearby, and it fell on this niece to do the family visiting.

          Well, you know how that goes.  She went, and they chatted for a bit about the weather and the food in the home and such things.  But in 15 minutes it dragged.  She hung in there for an hour and promised to come back again, but almost dreaded it, for they seemed to have nothing in common.  Then she found an old address book of her aunt's and took that along for the next visit.

          It proved a life saver for them both.  She read a name and her aunt remembered a picnic, or an evening visit, or a family affair.  The book proved to be the spark that was needed to enliven their visit, and the hour went by so pleasantly and quickly for them both.  Visits became a rare treat, instead of a chore.

          Keep that hint in mind when your turn comes for such ‘duty’ visits.

          My own address book, it’s still a work in progress.  Several classmates started a round robin when we graduated from the Seminary and kept it up for 50 years.  Now most of them are gone.  So the chore becomes a sort of sad thing.

          It is lightened by the fact that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them”.

GPD 1/19/12