MY WEEK BY FRANCIS GAY
We all know a first love is special even if it’s a dolly
Laughter is a tonic, When you’re feeling down, It helps to raise the spirits, Takes away that frown. If you can, keep smiling, Find some humour in your day, Life will seem much brighter, And clouds will roll away
The little doll was found in a car park. Someone handed it in at a nearby supermarket.
The supermarket showed it on its Facebook page, several people shared it. The child’s mother saw the post, but she wasn’t able to collect it. But someone else picked it up and delivered it so she could give it to her baby daughter. So many people willing to help a little girl they had never met, but why? Perhaps because embroidered across the front to of the toy were the words: “My First Dolly”.
Whether consciously or not, I believe these good hearts realised that a first dolly is something special. It’s the first thing a child actively decides to love. It’s the step after the instinctive love of parents, when a child’s love turns into a giving thing. It’s the beginning of loving one another.
Just as all those adults were doing when they reunited the child with her first dolly.
Johnny has vascular dementia and has had a stroke.
But he is an unfailing ray of sunshine for everyone he talks to.
He doesn’t get out any more but something he said reminded me of a story he’d told.
As a street pastor, feeding and caring for rough sleepers, he asked one man if he was ever scared. The man said he wasn’t because he knew angels looked over him. Johnny asked what they looked like.
“A lot like you,” the man answered.
As I retold the story, Johnny smiled. “I have no memory of that,” he said.
“But it suggests that I might have been a decent man. Thank you for that gift.”
It was a memory worth sharing for me, but I couldn’t disagree that it was a gift for him. Of course, it was a gift that Johnny gave the world first. I was simply returning it.
I hadn’t seen Morag for a few months, so I thought it best to keep a decent social distance for her sake.
But I did announce myself. You see, macular degeneration has taken her eyesight and she is re-learning how to walk around the paths near her house.
But the distance made talking difficult because her hearing isn’t too good either.
After a few frustrating attempts at catching up, she waved it all away and asked me what sort of shirt I was wearing. I described my top and she told me that she remembered it.
She turned her cheek toward my chest and reached out her arms. Surprised, I realised she was imagining a hug and feeling my shirt against her cheek.
Without thinking, my hand rose and patted the air like I might have done on her back. There was a lump in my throat.
I will never take a hug for granted again!
It was like a garden full of wisdom. As I walked past I saw him painting the garden wall. It was roughcast and I suggested it took a lot of painting.
“A wee bit at a time,” he replied. “It gets you there in the end.”
Passing on the way back again, I saw his wife sitting on a bench. I looked at the rose bushes, the potted azaleas, the flowerbeds around the edges.
“Beautiful garden,” I commented, guessing she had more than a hand in it.
“Not easy to maintain, though.”
“It’s not work if you love doing it,” she said.
“Yard by yard, life is hard, but inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I’ve read those words in collections of wisdom.
On this day, I heard their equivalents in that garden.