[Granville-Hough] 23 Apr 2009 - The Old Fisherman

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:15:55 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: The Old Fisherman (2007) 23 Apr 2009

THE  OLD FISHERMAN (author unknown)

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 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 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.  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
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.

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.

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 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 illness 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. "There'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.