Lovely Coincidence

In 1945, there was a young boy of 14 in a concentration camp. He was tall, thin but had a bright smile. Every day, a young girl came by on the other side of the fence. She noticed the boy and asked him if he spoke Polish, and he said yes. She said he'd looked hungry, and he said he was. She then reached in her pocket and gave him her apple. He thanked her and she went on her way. The next day, she came by again, bringing with her another apple which she gave him. Each day, she walked by the outside of the fence, hoping to see him, and when she did, she happily handed him an apple in exchange for conversation. 



One day, he told her not to come by anymore. He told her he was being shipped to another concentration camp. As he walked away with tears streaming down his face, he wondered if he'd ever see her again. She was the only kind soul he'd seen across the fence.



He made it out of the concentration camp, and immigrated to America. In 1957, his friends had fixed him up on a blind date. He had no idea who the woman was. He picked her up, and during dinner began talking of Poland and the concentration camp. She said she was in Poland at that time. She said she used to talk to a boy and gave him apples daily. He asked if this boy was tall, skinny and if he had told her that she shouldn't come back because he was leaving. She said yes.



It was her, the young girl who came by every day to give him apples. After 12 years, after the war and in another country... they had met again. What are the odds? He proposed to her on that very night and told her he'd never again let her go. They are still happily married today.



Now that, my friends, is a love story.

If you love her enough

My friend John always has something to tell me. He knows so much that young men have to have older and more worldly wise men to tell them. For instance who to trust, how to care for others, and how to live life to the fullest. 



Recently, John lost his wife Janet. For eight years she fought against cancer, but in the end her sickness had the last word. 



One day John took out a folded piece of paper from his wallet. He had found it, so he told me, when he tidied up some drawers at home. It was a small love letter Janet had written. The note could look like a school girl's scrawls about her dream guy. All that was missing was a drawing of a heart with the names John and Janet written in it. But the small letter was written by a woman who had had seven children; a woman who fought for her life and who probably only had a few months left to live.



It was also a beautiful recipe for how to keep a marriage together.



Janet's description of her husband begins thus: "Loved me. Took care of me. Worried about me." 



Even though John always had a ready answer, he never joked about cancer apparently. Sometimes he came home in the evening to find Janet in the middle of one of those depressions cancer patients so often get. In no time he got her into the car and drove her to her favourite restaurant. 



He showed consideration for her, and she knew it. You cannot hide something for someone who knows better. 



"Helped me when I was ill," the next line reads. Perhaps Janet wrote this while the cancer was in one of the horrible and wonderful lulls. Where everything is -- almost -- as it used to be, before the sickness broke out, and where it doesn't hurt to hope that everything is over, maybe forever. 



"Forgave me a lot."



"Stood by my side." 



And a piece of good advice for everyone who looks on giving constructive criticism as a kind of sacred duty: "Always praising." 



"Made sure I had everything I needed," she goes on to write.



After that she has turned over the paper and added: "Warmth. Humour. Kindness. Thoughtfulness." And then she writes about the husband she has lived with and loved the most of her life: "Always there for me when I needed you." 



The last words she wrote sum up all the others. I can see her for me where she adds thoughtfully: "Good friend."



I stand beside John now, and cannot even pretend to know how it feels to lose someone who is as close to me as Janet was to him. I need to hear what he has to say much more than he needs to talk. 



"John," I ask. "How do you stick together with someone through 38 years -- not to mention the sickness? How do I know if I can bear to stand by my wife's side if she becomes sick one day?"



"You can," he says quietly. "If you love her enough, you can."

Anyone for a nice cup of tea?

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.

During their visit the conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in their work and lives.  Offering his guests tea, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of tea and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the tea.  When all the alumni had a cup of tea in hand, the professor said:

"Notice that all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the tea. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was tea, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups.... and then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the tea; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life. The type of cup one has does not define, nor change the quality of life a person lives. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the tea. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.

Live simply.  Love generously.  Care deeply.  Speak kindly...... And enjoy your tea.

Healing power of music

I turned onto the street where my father lives. The closer I got to the house, the more I dreaded seeing him.

Since Mum died and he lived alone, Dad was often angry, and lately he was getting more and more confused. Today promised to be worse than usual. He had a new aid named Liuda, from our home country of Lithuania. The presence of a stranger was bound to make Dad even more irritable.

Sure enough, Dad started complaining as soon as I got in the door. “This new girl doesn’t know anything,” he grumbled.

“It’ll take some time for her to learn how to help you,” I reassured him.

The three of us sat awkwardly in the living room. I wished I could think of something to say. Lord, please help us feel more comfortable with this arrangement. 

Liuda sprang to her feet. Walking over to Dad’s record player, she dropped a Lithuanian folk record onto the turntable. The familiar accordion music played. Dad started singing. Liuda smiled.

The music seemed to drive all the tension from the room. We chatted about Lithuania. It was one of the nicest visits Dad and I had ever had.

When I left he hugged me good-bye and asked me to look at old photos with him and Liuda next time. For a moment I glimpsed the old Dad. The man I’d always loved spending time with.

I’d come to Dad’s expecting the worst. But with Liuda’s help and a little music from the old country, I’d found what I would always love.