Today some friends and I encountered Grace.
Grace is 95 and she lives alone in a mobile home park here
in town. She had a stroke a few years ago and has a hard time keeping up with
maintenance – especially the yard work. And, she can be fined if her yard isn’t
up to snuff.
So, we went over to help her out. I brought my electric
hedge trimmers and started looking for an outlet – all the exterior outlets
were dead. So, Grace took me to her shed where she had both a 50’ and a 100’
extension cord, and took me in the house to plug it in to a known “hot” outlet.
(we later figured out that she had tripped a GFI breaker in her bathroom,
killing a bunch of outlets around her place). She showed me a portrait of herself
at age 16 “very pretty” I said. The she showed me one of her at 38 – “still a
looker – what a smile!” I said. Then she told me “ever since my stroke, my lip
just lays there on my chin and I can’t really smile any more – but thanks for
being kind”.
We started out focused on the front – it faces the street
and is where the “yard police” would look for faults. As we worked our way
around, I realized just how much she had created in this space.
Grace started all this landscaping when she was in her 80’s.
She also breeds birds. But not so many any more – too much
work to take care of more than the 5 or 6 she has.
Of course, there is one key ingredient in Graces garden…
Now – who do you think got the better blessing today?
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