All houses should have a kitchen window. At least, for me, there is a lot to see in the view from my kitchen window. It happened many years ago, but it was a view that I can still see in my mind’s eye. It was one of those significant moments […]
The View From My Kitchen Window Read More »
My wife, three young daughters and I were starting dinner at 7:00 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2001, when I smelled a hint of smoke. As my wife’s candles had caused this before, I wasn’t alarmed, but started looking around. Coming back from the kitchen the smell was stronger. Suddenly my
I know we are not supposed to judge people, but where Kennie was concerned, I found it impossible. I decided he was the wrong person in the wrong kind of work. I’m a swing-shift nursing supervisor, and it’s my job to evaluate workers’ performances at a convalescent hospital.
Kennie was a new employee, tall and very strong, not bad looking, with his blond hair cut to the collar and dark green eyes. After a few weeks’ probation, I had to admit he was clean, punctual and reasonably efficient. But I just didn’t like him. Kennie looked like a hood. I knew the neighborhood he came from – a cesspool of gangs, drugs and violence. His language was street talk, his manner wry, his walk springy and controlled like a boxer’s, and his expression closed off like the steel door on a bank vault. He seemed too large and carefully controlling of a powerful will to be able to fit into the highly specialized teamwork of a convalescent hospital.
The vast majority of our patients come to us in the final stages of terminal disease or with the most terminal of all diseases – old age. They come to us crippled, weakened, confused and defeated, no longer able to function out in the world. Many have lost the faculty of rational thought, a casualty of failing health and a world that often seems brutal and indifferent.
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Sean McDermott lives in Long Beach, California, now, but he and his six brothers and sisters were raised in Monticello, Iowa, about 35 miles from Cedar Rapids. He wrote to share a story about his sister Kelley. “Kelley has epilepsy,” Sean says, “and at the time, she was in nursing
Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all of the books he was carrying, along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up
Real life friends Read More »
Years ago, I was enthralled as I listened to a pastor who for several years had faithfully served the church. His executive responsibilities had taken him all over this country. As he concluded his message, he told of one of the most frightening yet thought-provoking experiences of his life. He
Billy and his cousin Jeff went camping the first weekend after school let out for the summer. This was kind of a tradition the boys had started a few years ago. The boys always went out to Grandpas farm to camp out. Grandpa would haul them out some fire wood
Blind Leading The Blind Read More »
Kathy’s family of four had lived comfortably on two incomes until she became ill and could not work. “Things went downhill fast,” she says. “Before we knew it, we had sold every Ë‹toy’ we owned—my husband’s small hunting trailer, the row boat, even our telescope.” But Kathy’s medical bills and other debts kept mounting. Worse, they had two vehicles that were almost paid off—but they could no longer make those payments either.
One day a collector phoned to warn Kathy that both vehicles were going to be repossessed. “But they’re both almost paid off,” Kathy protested. Yes, the collector told her, but if she couldn’t make the payments, the cars would have to be picked up. “I couldn’t let that happen—not when they were almost ours—so I phoned our life insurance agent, and asked to have our policy cashed in.”
The agency sent Kathy the paperwork, and she filled it out and sent it back. A week passed, and then the car dealership contacted Kathy, demanding payment or the cars within three days. Upset, Kathy phoned the agency to ask when the life insurance check would be ready. “Oh,” the secretary said, “those transactions take at least two weeks, usually longer.” “Two weeks!” Kathy gasped. “I need the money today.” She explained the family’s dilemma, and the secretary was very sympathetic. But there was nothing she could do to speed things up. When Kathy hung up, she put her face in her hands and wept.
  It was 1967. The year I turned 11 my father was in the hospital with cancer, and it was a very bleak December. There was lots of snow and cold, and an old furnace ruled our household with demands for fuel oil and attention. The neighbor had the required
Chips and So Much More Read More »
Margaret Sangster a great social worker, once told the story of her work in the slums of a big city. She told of how she managed to organize a gymnasium to be open to boys in the area after school. One afternoon a young boy hobbled into the gym on
Bringing up your children Read More »
