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She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,
Refusing to look back at the "thieving ingrate."
She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise.
There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes!
"If mine are here," she moaned with despair,
"Then the others were his and he tried to share!"
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!
Valerie Cox
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The True Story of Arbutus and Sea Gull
My grandmother had an enemy named Mrs. Wilcox. Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox moved as brides into next-door houses on the sleepy elm-roofed Main Street of the tiny town in which they were to live out their lives. I don't know what started the warthat was long before my dayand I don't think that by the time I came along, over 30 years later, they remembered themselves what started it. But it was still being waged bitterly.
Make no mistake. This was no polite sparring match. This was war between ladies, which is total war. Nothing in town escaped repercussion. The 300-year-old church, which had lived through the Revolution, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, almost went down when Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox fought the Battle of the Ladies' Aid. Grandma won that engagement, but it was a hollow victory. Mrs. Wilcox, since she couldn't be president, resigned from the Aid in a huff, and what's the fun of running a thing if you can't force your mortal enemy to "eat crow"?
Mrs. Wilcox won the Battle of the Public Library, getting her niece Gertrude appointed librarian instead of my Aunt Phyllis. The day Gertrude took over was the day Grandma stopped reading library books"filthy germ things" they'd become overnightand started buying her own.
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The Battle of the High School was a draw. The principal got a better job and left before Mrs. Wilcox succeeded in having him ousted, or Grandma in having him given life tenure in office.
In addition to these major engagements, there was constant sallying and sniping back of the main line of fire. When, as children, we visited my grandmother, part of the fun was making faces at Mrs. Wilcox's impossible grandchildrennearly as impossible as we were, I now seeand stealing grapes off the Wilcox side of the fence between the gardens. We chased the Wilcox hens, too, and put percussion caps, saved from July 4th, on the rails of the trolley line right in front of the Wilcox house, in the pleasant hope that when the trolley went by, the explosionactually a negligible affairwould scare Mrs. Wilcox into fits.
One banner day, we put a snake into the Wilcox rain barrel. My grandmother made token protests, but we sensed tacit sympathy, so different from what lay back of my mother's no's, and went merrily on with our career of brattishness. If any child of mine . . . but that's another story.
Don't think for a minute that this was a one-sided campaign. Mrs. Wilcox had grandchildren, too, remember, more and tougher and smarter grandchildren than my grandmother had. Grandma didn't get off scot free. She had skunks introduced into her cellar. On Halloween all loose forgotten objects, such as garden furniture, miraculously flew to the ridgepole of the barn, whence they had to be lowered by strong men, hired at exorbitant day rates.
Never a windy washday went by but what the clothesline mysteriously broke, so that the sheets walloped around in the dirt and had to be done over. Some of these occurrences may have been acts of God, but the Wilcox grandchildren always got the credit.
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I don't know how Grandma could have borne her troubles if it hadn't been for the household page of her daily Boston newspaper.
This household page was a wonderful institution. Besides the usual cooking hints and cleaning advice, it had a department composed of letters from readers to each other. The idea was that if you had a problemor even only some steam to blow offyou wrote a letter to the paper, signing some fancy name like Arbutus. That was Grandma's pen name. Then some of the other ladies who had the same problem wrote back and told you what they had done about it, signing themselves One Who Knows or Xanthipee, or whatever. Very often, the problem disposed of, you kept on for years writing to each other through the columns of the paper, telling each other about your children and your canning and your new dining room suite.
That's what happened to Grandma. She and a woman called Sea Gull corresponded for a quarter of a century, and Grandma told Sea Gull things that she never breathed to another soulthings like the time she hoped that she was going to have another baby but didn't, and the time my Uncle Steve got you-know-what in his hair in school and how humiliated she was, although she got rid of them before anyone in town guessed. Sea Gull was Grandma's true bosom friend.
When I was about 16, Mrs. Wilcox died. In a small town, no matter how much you have hated your next-door neighbor, it is only common decency to run over and see what practical service you can do the bereaved.
Grandma, neat in a percale apron to show that she meant what she said about being put to work, crossed the two lawns to the Wilcox house, where the Wilcox daughters set her to cleaning the already immaculate front parlor for the funeral. And there on the parlor table in the
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place of honor was a huge scrapbook, and in the scrapbook, pasted neatly in parallel columns, were her letters to Sea Gull over the years and Sea Gull's letters to her. Grandma's worst enemy had been her best friend.
That was the only time I remembered seeing my grandmother cry. I didn't know then exactly what she was crying about, but I do now. She was crying for all the wasted years that could never be salvaged. Then I was impressed only by the tears, and they made me remember that day worthier of remembrance than a woman's tears. That was the day when I first began to suspect what I now believe with all my heart, and if ever I have to stop believing it, I want to stop living. It is this:
People may seem to be perfectly impossible. They may seem to be mean and small and sly. But if you will take 10 paces to the left and look again with the light falling at a different angle, very likely you will see that they are generous and warm and kind. It all depends. It all depends on the point from which you're seeing them.
Louise Dickinson Rich
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Lady, Are You Rich?
They huddled inside the storm doortwo children in ragged outgrown coats.
"Any old papers, lady?"
I was busy. I wanted to say nountil I looked down at their feet. Thin little sandals, sopped with sleet. "Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa." There was no conversation. Their soggy sandals left marks upon the hearthstone.
I served them cocoa and toast with jam to fortify against the chill outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget . . . .
The silence in the front room struck through to me. I looked in.
The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady. . . are you rich?"
"Am I rich? Mercy, no!" I looked at my shabby slip covers.
The girl put her cup back in its saucercarefully. "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was old, with a hunger that was not of the stomach.
They left then, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said thank you. They didn't need to. They had done more than that. Plain blue pottery cups and saucers. But they matched. I tested the potatoes and stirred the gravy. Potatoes and brown gravy, a roof over
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our heads, my man with a good steady jobthese things matched, too.
I moved the chairs back from the fire and tidied the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my hearth. I let them be. I want them there in case I ever forget again how very rich I am.
<
br /> Marion Doolan
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The Flower in Her Hair
She always wore a flower in her hair. Always. Mostly I thought it looked strange. A flower in midday? To work? To professional meetings? She was an aspiring graphic designer in the large, busy office where I worked. Every day she'd sail into the office with its ultra-modern crisp decor, wearing a flower in her shoulder-length hair. Usually color-coordinated with her otherwise suitable attire, it bloomed, a small parasol of vivid color, pinned to the large backdrop of dark brunette waves. There were times, like at the company Christmas party, where the flower added a touch of festivity and seemed appropriate. But to work, it just seemed out of place. Some of the more ''professionally-minded" women in the office were practically indignant about it, and thought someone ought to take her aside and inform her of the "rules" in being "taken seriously" in the business world. Others among us, myself included, thought it just an odd quirk and privately referred to her as "flower power" or "girl flower."
"Has flower power completed the preliminary design on the Wal-Mart project?" one of us would ask the other, with a small lopsided smile.
"Of course. It turned out greather work has really blossomed," might be the reply, housed in patronizing smiles of shared amusement. We thought our mockery
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innocent at the time. To my knowledge no one had questioned the young woman as to why a flower accompanied her to work each day. In fact, we probably would have been more inclined to question her had she shown up without it.
Which she did one day. When she delivered a project to my office, I queried. "I noticed there is no flower in your hair today," I said casually. "I'm so used to seeing you wear one that it almost seems as if something is missing."
"Oh, yes," she replied quietly, in a rather somber tone. This was a departure from her usual bright and perky personality. The pregnant pause that followed blared loudly, prompting me to ask, "Are you okay?" Though I was hoping for a ''Yes, I'm fine" response, intuitively, I knew I had treaded onto something bigger than a missing flower.
"Oh," she said softly, with an expression encumbered with recollection and sorrow. "Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. I miss her so much. I guess I'm a bit blue."
"I understand," I said, feeling compassion for her but not wanting to wade into emotional waters. "I'm sure it's very difficult for you to talk about," I continued, the business part of me hoping she would agree, but my heart understanding that there was more.
"No. It's okay, really. I know that I'm extraordinarily sensitive today. This is a day of mourning, I suppose. You see . . ." and she began to tell me the story.
"My mother knew that she was losing her life to cancer. Eventually, she died. I was 15 at the time. We were very close. She was so loving, so giving. Because she knew she was dying, she prerecorded a birthday message I was to watch every year on my birthday, from age 16 until I reached 25. Today is my 25th birthday, and this morning I watched the video she prepared for this day. I guess I'm still digesting it. And wishing she were alive."
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"Well, my heart goes out to you," I said, feeling a great deal of empathy for her.
"Thank you for your kindness," she said. "Oh, and about the missing flower you asked about. When I was a little girl my mother would often put flowers in my hair. One day when she was in the hospital I took her this beautiful large rose from her garden. As I held it up to her nose so she could smell it, she took it from me, and without saying a word, pulled me close to her, stroking my hair and brushing it from my face, placed it in my hair, just as she had done when I was little. She died later that day." Tears came to her eyes as she added, "I've just always worn a flower in my hair sinceit made me feel as though she were with me, if only in spirit. But," she sighed, "today, as I watched the video designed for me on this birthday, in it she said she was sorry for not being able to be there for me as I grew up, that she hoped she had been a good parent, and that she would like a sign that I was becoming self-sufficient. That's the way my mother thoughtthe way she talked." She looked at me, smiling fondly at the memory. ''She was so wise."
I nodded, agreeing. "Yes, she sounds very wise."
"So I thought, a sign, what could it be? And it seemed it was the flower that had to go. But I'll miss it, and what it represents."
Her hazel eyes gazed off in recollection as she continued. "I was so lucky to have had her." Her voice trailed off and she met my eyes again, then smiled sadly. "But I don't need to wear a flower to be reminded of these things. I really do know that. It was just an outward sign of my treasured memoriesthey're still there even with the flower gone . . . but still I will miss it . . . Oh, here's the project. I hope it meets with your approval." She handed me the neatly prepared folder, signed, with a hand-drawn flower, her signature trademark, below her name.
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When I was young, I remember hearing the phrase, "Never judge another person until you've walked a mile in his shoes." I thought about all the times I had been insensitive about this young woman with the flower in her hair, and how tragic it was that I had done this in the absence of information, not knowing the young woman's fate and the cross that was hers to bear. I prided myself on knowing intricately each facet of my company, and knew precisely how each role and function contributed to the next. How tragic for me that I had bought into the notion that a person's personal life was unrelated to her professional life, and was to be left at the door when entering corporate life. That day I knew that the flower this young woman wore in her hair was symbolic of her outpouring of lovea way for her to stay connected to the young mother she had lost when she herself was a young girl.
I looked over the project she had completed, and felt honored that it had been treated by one with such depth and capacity for feeling . . . of being. No wonder her work was consistently excellent. She lived in her heart daily. And caused me to re-visit mine.
Bettie B. Youngs
From Gifts of the Heart
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Avalanche
To every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage.
W. Clement Stone
It was our dream cabin10,000 square feet of luxurious space overlooking a majestic waterfall on the back side of Mount Timpanogos, near the slopes of Robert Redford's famous Sundance Ski Resort. It took my wife and me several years to design, plan, build and furnish it.
But it took only 10 seconds to completely destroy it.
I remember the afternoon of the disaster as if it were yesterday. Thursday, February 13th, 1986, the day before our ninth anniversary. It had snowed heavily that day. About 40 inches. Still, my wife braved the weather for the 30-minute ride up the canyon from our home in Provo, Utah, to visit our newly completed mountain home. Taking our six-year-old son, Aaron, she left early that afternoon, stopping on the way to buy some ingredients for a cake to celebrate our special day. I was to join her later and bring Aimee, our nine-year-old daughter, and Hunter, our youngest son.
My first hint of danger came at about 3:00 P.M. with a call from the Sundance ski patrol.
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"There's a problem at your cabin. You'd better come immediately."
They gave no more details. Although I was behind deadline in finishing up a book project, I left my computer and anxiously dashed up the canyon on snow-clogged roads. When I arrived at the ski resort, the director of the resort and his staff greeted me with somber looks on their faces.
"There's been a catastrophe at the cabin. We think your wife and son were there. Jump in my four-wheel drive. Let's go."
The cabin was adjacent to the main Sundance ski slope and was accessible only by a narrow, winding mountain road. As we frantically raced up the road, the high snow banks on either side made it seem as if we were winding through a labyrinth. As we rounded a curve in the road we met another vehicle coming down the narrow roadway. Both of us slammed on our brakes as we skidded into each other, with minor damage to both
vehicles. After a brief exchange of information we continued our race up the narrow road until the copper roof of the cabin came into sight in the distance.