Tuesday slipped right by me this week as e am once again getting prepared to have a bone replacement operation on April 2. Right knee this time.
So this will probably be my last blog of the season but it will be a bit different.
I talk to so many people who tell me such interesting stories that I would like to write some of them down so that I won't forget them and maybe you will find them interesting too.
From my Aquatic Therapy instructor
My pool therapy instructor grew up a migrant worker from the age of 12 and can remember his first paycheck when he thought he was rich..$10.00 His dad was an alcoholic and used to take him to the bar room while he got his beer. He would just play while father drank but as the years went by and he grew to be a big kid, his father would take offence at someone in the bar and tell his son to go fight him. The son was very mild in nature but had to do as his father told him to.
He told me the story of his Mexican grandmother who at the age of 14 caught the eye of an older man in the neighborhood who wanted to marry her. She wanted a boy closer to her age. In this village, a man could just go to the girls house, kidnap her and take her for his wife and the family could do nothing about it. She found out that he was getting a couple of his friends together and he was going to come after her so she ran away, illegally crossed the border without knowing anyone in the US. She managed to support herself and to learn English and 16 years later, she passed the citizenship test and became an American citizen.
From my Mexican hairdresser
I will call her Esme because I can't spell her real name.
Esme's mother couldn't take care of her and her brother so she left them in the care of her very poor grandmother in Mexico. Esme says that many days there was no hope of a meal but the grandmother would not seem to worry, she would just say lets see what God will provide. When there was food, she taught Esme to cook from the time she was 12.
When they started school, grandmother had some newsprint and one pencil for the kids as she took them to school. She broke the pencil in half and sharpened the broken half so they could each have a pencil but Esme cried because she got the half with no eraser. Grandmother reached down and hugged her and said, I gave the eraser part to your brother because you will not need it.
Esme tried all her life to not make mistakes because she took this to heart and wanted to please her grandmother.
For her 15th birthday Grandmother made her a small bottle of Jasmine perfume.. She ground up the blossom and added oils and put it in a small, pretty bottle.
This part I am not too sure of but I think she said that she was having a hard time at some point on her life and when she was at her wits end, she smelled Jasmine and knew that her grandmother was looking out for her. Not sure I understand that last part but Esme believes it and feels like her grandmother is still near her.
And lastly, a love story.
I have mentioned Walter before in my blog. He is a survivor of the landing at Iwo Jima and is in his mid 80's
He lied about his age, entered the military at age 16. He operated a landing craft whose missiion was to take wounded off the beach at Iwo Jima and get them to triage. He did this for 8 days.
After the War, he took advantage of the GI Bill and went to William and Mary University. What is so remarkable about this is that he had quit high school after 8th grade and never did get a high school diploma. He has a college degree but no high school diploma.
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Walt felt he had a real calling for the ministry and over time, he founded three churches. Eventually he found great satisfaction in missionary work and founded The World indigenous Mission.
Meanwhile, he met and married May. They were marrried 56 years and in May's last days, she told Walt that when she was gone , she wanted him to marry their very good friend Kathy.
Kathy had lost her husband to illness also and had no idea of ever marrying again. She was thinking that she had never been able to do exactly what she wanted to and would never marry again.
Long story short. Walt and Kathy were good friends as before the losses of their respective spouses but Walt began to find he really did want to marry Kathy but was a little afraid to ask her.. These people are in their seventies now. Well, he asked and after a while she said yes, but three weeks before the wedding, Walt had a heart attack. He told the doctor that he had better get well because he was getting married in three weeks.
Thier respective families wer all very enthused with the idea and took over all the plans. There were no invitations to the wedding, it was word of mouth in the church and among friends and family and there were 450 people at their wedding. When the minister asked who gives the bride, 28 people from Kathy's family stood up and said, "We do".
They have been married for 6 years now and Walt says they are the happiest years of his life.
I love thi story. .
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