Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul Part 5

He walked slowly across the room and ever so carefully took the container off the shelf-fearing that, horror of horrors, he'd spill the contents while sneaking a peek.

He set the container on the counter and carefully pried off the lid. He was almost scared to look inside! When the inside of the container came into full view, Ben's eyes opened wide-why, the container was empty... except for a little folded slip of paper at the bottom.

Ben reached down for the paper, his big rugged hand struggling to get inside. He carefully picked it up by a corner, removed it and slowly unfolded it under the kitchen light.

A brief note was scrawled inside, and Ben immediately recognized the handwriting as that of Martha's mother. Very simply it said: "Martha-To everything you make, add a dash of love."

Ben swallowed hard, replaced the note and the container, and quietly went back to finis.h.i.+ng his cake. Now he completely understood why it tasted so good.

Submitted by Dot Abraham

Reminisce magazine

2.

ON ATt.i.tUDE.

AND.

SELF-ESTEEM.

You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live.

Joan Baez

Be a Queen

EDITORS' NOTE: Over the years, we have been inspired by messages about love and the power of choice that great women of the world have given us. One of the most inspiring messages has come through the words, actions, and examples of one of the world's most loved and respected women, Oprah Winfrey. Continually she reminds us that within every woman lies a queen, waiting to claim her glory. Referring to a theme used by Marianne Williamson in her book A Woman's Worth, Oprah said the following in a commencement address to the graduates of all-female Spelman College in 1993: Be a queen. Dare to be different. Be a pioneer.Be a leader. Be the kind of woman who in the face of adversity will continue to embrace life and walk fearlessly toward the challenge. Take it on! Be a truth seeker and rule your domain, whatever it is-your home, your office, your family-with a loving heart.

Be a queen. Be tender. Continue to give birth to new ideas and rejoice in your womanhood . .. My prayer is that we will stop wasting time being mundane and mediocre ...We are daughters of G.o.d-here to teach the world how to love . . .

It doesn't matter what you've been through, where you come from, who your parents are- nor your social or economic status. None of that matters. What matters is how you choose to love, how you choose to express that love through your work, through your family, through what you have to give to the world . . .

Be a queen. Own your power and your glory!

Oprah Winfrey

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Nothing had ever hit me quite so hard as driving behind the ambulance that was taking my dear friend, Alice, away to live in a nursing home. As lightening snagged the dark, rainy April morning sky, I caught a glimpse of the note Alice had scribbled back in her hospital room: "Don't let them put me in that place!"

But Alice had exceeded her allotted hospital stay and there was nothing I could do to stop her being moved. She was unable to breathe on her own and was connected to a ventilator, requiring complex care twenty-four hours a day. My hands were as tied as the restraints that kept Alice from pulling out her tubes when she got confused at night.

Alice had been my neighbor when I was growing up. She'd lived alone, and how she'd welcomed me into her generous heart and wonderful big red brick home. Gracious hospitality was practically a reflex for Alice. She was an art teacher and always had a jumble of creative projects going at any given moment. I loved her old-timey furnis.h.i.+ngs and the cozy clutter of her "stuff"-her "make something out of nothing" works in progress: trinkets, stacks of books, and little gifts she kept on hand for friends who happened by.

The nursing home buzzed with activity and the latest technology and even had a homey parlor, kitchen, and dining room. But it wasn't home. It was Alice's worst fear come to life. The morning she was admitted, she shook her head in despair at residents lined up in the halls in wheelchairs, like cars stopped at a red light that never turned green. Overnight, her life was reduced to a bed and a body with vacant eyes that announced, "n.o.body's home anymore."

The nursing home staff, however, orchestrated an amazingly successful respiratory rehabilitation program for Alice. As the months pa.s.sed, we clung to a snippet of resurrected hope that someday she might return to the home she loved so. But Alice experienced several setbacks and ran out of money for medical expenses before that could happen. Everything she'd worked so hard for had to be liquidated to pay for her care. One devastating day, the Realtor's "SOLD" sign appeared in Alice's yard. In no time, an endless parade of estate sale shoppers were sorting through her "stuff" and carrying her dearly familiar treasures away.

It was like watching a funeral procession. This is supposed to happen after you're dead, I agonized, not to someone you love who is still alive and dreaming of going home. I mourned not only for Alice's loss but for mine as well. Never again would I feel the warmth of being a guest in her home.

For weeks I couldn't bring myself to visit Alice. Grief stalked me at the oddest moments and was my constant companion in my job of styling homes for magazine photography. Then late one evening after a photo shoot at a charming Victorian cottage hear the nursing home, I dropped by to visit her. She was napping, and in the gathering blackness, her raised side rails resembled a prison cell. All of her worldly possessions were piled in bed with her-her purse, a box of tissues, partially completed sketches, stationery and pens. My eyes fell upon a big roll of address labels. They featured the address of the nursing home-not Alice's home we both loved so. I choked back tears at the finality of the situation. Plain and simple, this was to be Alice's permanent address until heaven. "Dear Lord," I prayed. "Help us both... somehow."

I tapped Alice's shoulder to rouse her and switched on the lamp above her tiny bed. Her tightly permed gray curls framed gentle wrinkles. "It's me-Roberta," I whispered, trying to sound cheerful.

A smile flashed across Alice's face, lighting up the darkness. It was strangely full of promise. "Let my siderail down, honey," she asked. She drew her legs in closer to make room for me, then patted the nubby pink bedspread, smoothing a spot for me to sit on the edge of the bed. I squeezed in next to her open Bible and devotional book. They were stretched out at the foot of her bed like a welcome mat. "Saved you something from my dinner tray," she said as she retrieved two vanilla wafers, tucked inside a brown paper towel, from her nightstand drawer.

"Alice, these are my favorite," I gasped. "You remembered."

"Well, look behind the curtain. I won you a little something at our party." Nestled inside a gaily wrapped box that once held medical examination gloves was a pretty pot of potpourri. Alice stirred it with her finger to release its spicy scent. "Cinnamon," she explained. "It will make your kitchen smell real good."

That afternoon, I'd sipped gourmet coffee and nibbled fancy cookies at a table dressed in antique linens and lace, finely etched crystal, and delicate china. It was picture-perfect, and in a few months it would grace the pages of a glossy decorating magazine. But it didn't come close to Alice's loving gestures, her simple sharing of everything she had. All at once, the longing in my spirit was filled with a peaceful, new understanding that when your home is in your heart, it travels with you wherever you go.

Alice and I enjoyed one of our best visits ever, reminiscing about the old neighborhood and thanking the Lord for Alice's new one. She was excited about leading a little crafts group, and I welcomed her advice about wall papering my bedroom. When it was time for me to leave her snug room, Alice hobbled beside me down the long hallway to the front door. "They take such good care of me here," she rea.s.sured me. "Why I don't even have to find someone to mow the gra.s.s." As I headed to my car, Alice paused in the doorway, wearing the new housecoat I'd brought her. She waved and blew me a kiss. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her chuckling with her new family.

I smiled to myself. Alice's heart was home. And thanks to answered prayer and some true hospitality, at long last, so was mine.

Roberta L. Messner Reprinted by permission of Bil Keane.

A Tale of Two Cities

A traveler nearing a great city asked a woman seated by the wayside, "What are the people like in the city?"

"How were the people where you came from?"

"A terrible lot," the traveler responded. "Mean, untrust worthy, detestable in all respects."

"Ah," said the woman, "you will find them the same in the city ahead."

Scarcely was the first traveler gone when another one stopped and also inquired about the people in the city before him. Again the old woman asked about the people in the place the traveler had left.

"They were fine people; honest, industrious, and generous to a fault. I was sorry to leave," declared the second traveler.

Responded the wise woman: "So you will find them in the city ahead."

The Best of Bits & Pieces

Where Do the Mermaids Stand?

What is right for one soul may not be right for another. It may mean having to stand on your own and do something strange in the eyes of others.

Eileen Caddy Giants, Wizards and Dwarfs was the game to play.

Being left in charge of about 80 children 7 to 10 years old, while their parents were off doing parenty things, I mustered my troops in the church social hall and explained the game. It's a large-scale version of Rock, Paper and Scissors, and involves some intellectual decision making. But the real purpose of the game is to make a lot of noise and run around chasing people until n.o.body knows which side you are on or who won.

Organizing a roomful of wired-up grade-schoolers into two teams, explaining the rudiments of the game, achieving consensus on group ident.i.ty-all of this is no mean accomplishment, but we did it with a right good will and were ready to go.

The excitement of the chase had reached a critical ma.s.s. I yelled out: "You have to decide now which you are-a GIANT, a WIZARD or a DWARF!"

While the groups huddled in frenzied, whispered consultation, a tug came at my pant leg. A small child stands there looking up, and asks in a small concerned voice, "Where do the Mermaids stand?"

Where do the Mermaids stand?

A long pause. A very long pause. "Where do the Mermaids stand?" says I.

"Yes. You see, I am a Mermaid."

"There are no such things as Mermaids."

"Oh yes there is, I am one!"

She did not relate to being a Giant, a Wizard or a Dwarf. She knew her category, Mermaid, and was not about to leave the game and go over and stand against the wall where a loser would stand. She intended to partic.i.p.ate, wherever Mermaids fit into the scheme of things, without giving up dignity or ident.i.ty. She took it for granted that there was a place for Mermaids and that I would know just where.

Well, where do the Mermaids stand? All the Mermaids-all those who are different, who do not fit the norm, and who do not accept the available boxes and pigeonholes?

Answer that question and you can build a school, a nation or a world on it.

What was my answer at the moment? Every once in a while I say the right thing. "The Mermaid stands right here by the King of the Sea!" (Yes, right here by the King's Fool, I thought to myself.) So we stood there hand in hand, reviewing the troops of Wizards and Giants and Dwarfs as they rolled by in wild disarray.

It is not true, by the way, that Mermaids do not exist. I know at least one personally. I have held her hand.

Robert Fulghum

Submitted by Rashaun C. Geter

The Pirate

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Anais Nin One day Mrs. Smith was sitting in her doctor's waiting room when a young boy and his mother entered the office. The young boy caught Mrs. Smith's attention because he wore a patch over one eye. She marveled at how unaffected he seemed to be by the loss of an eye and watched as he followed his mother to a chair nearby.