AS WE RECALL

The old lady moved way off the side of the road even though there was plenty of room to pass. I noticed in the rear view mirror as I began to turn south onto the main thoroughfare, highway 19 toward Meridian, she was unsteady and was having difficulty walking.

It was just over one year ago that, my wife Naoma, was found on this highway by a member of the county sheriff department, almost the exact same spot. She was wandering adrift in the midst of heavy traffic; gamblers going and coming from the large casino, the Silverstar, just west of Philadelphia. Naoma has Alzheimers!

I sensed a terrible fear and I immediately turned around and went back to check on the strange old lady that was passing through the neighborhood. I couldn’t recall ever having seen her before!

She again moved off the roadside as I stopped and got out of the car.

"May I help you Ma’am?" I asked as she cringed with fear.

"I am going to pay them what I owe." She replied.

In response to my questions she could not recall her name or where she lived or for that matter where she was going except "I am going to pay them what I owe!"

The more I talked the calmer she became until she hobbled over to the car door dragging her cane. I assured her that I would drive her wherever she needed to go.

She was a neat, trim like old lady and after she was situated in the front seat she became quite talkative but she still could not recall her name, where she was from or where she was going. She told me they were stealing her money and trying to take her land and that she didn’t have anything in her house to eat. I simply did not know what to do with her so I decided to take her to see my friend Mary who owned the store where I usually buy gas.

"Miss Rosie, you come right on in here!" My friend Mary said holding the screen door.

"Thank God!" I prayed silently!

Mary solved most all my problems. She was able to call a relative, a niece and her husband, and ask them to come and pick her up but they were both ill and couldn’t get out of the house.

I replaced my new friend Rosie into the front seat and followed the directions Mary had given to me. When we turned into her niece’s driveway Rosie allowed "Why didn’t you take me here in the first place?"

When I found a wide space down the road a ways I pulled over and parked for awhile. I cried like a baby. When I came across Rosie I was on my way to the nursing home to see Naoma!

When I got to Naoma’s room she looked the best I have seen her in a long, long time. She had a look of contentment and an air of safety. I told her about my friend Rosie. She laughed at me!

Somehow Rosie was included when Naoma and I shared, perhaps for our last time, our prayer and a vestige of unique blessings contained in a lifetime of memories,

AS WE RECALL

There is a file of memories, stored somewhere within ourselves.
We take them down and use them briefly, then place them back upon the shelves..
Each one then becomes treasure, a separate story to be told,
And in the telling, we are mindful, they are a blessing to behold!

Things like frost upon a pumpkin or a possum up a tree,
An old sow cat with the measles, a team of horses Haw and Gee.
Cave like holes within a snow bank, the aroma of an apple bloom,
An attic streaked with dusty sun rays, a woolen cloth from Grandma’s loom!

A patchwork quilt of many colors, a shanty camp out in the woods,
A broken fence line spilling cattle, lazy cows that chew their cuds.
A pitchfork full of fodder, a bird’s nest lined with robin eggs,
A lucky four leaf clover cluster, and a worm with many legs.

An angry bee tree dripping honey, juice fermenting into wine,
Flies trapped by sticky cobwebs, icicles dripping pure sunshine.
Reflections on a pool of water, a wooden homemade butter mold,
Ghosts that linger in the shadows, rainbows set in pots of gold!

A sampling of the many treasures within the archives of our mind,
An endless tape of unique blessings that we select as they unwind.
They keep us forever youthful, remembered thing to have and hold,
And sustain us when we are lonely, through the years as we grow old!