Was it You?
“A rather strange and rare thing happened to us recently,” says Jim Claypool. “My wife Ginni had a bad day at the day care. She wandered off unsupervised, and I noticed her negative attitude as soon as I picked her up. But it was our forty-eighth wedding anniversary, and I was hoping to cheer her up by taking her out for a nice dinner.”
Ginni’s Alzheimer’s is advanced to a point that she really does not notice much difference in restaurants, Jim says, but this time he took her to a local TGI Fridays. The dinner was nice, but “as always, it was necessary for me to help by ordering for her and cutting her meat as she has trouble doing that,” Jim says. “I talked at length to her during dinner, assuring her that everything was OK and that I loved her and would always be there for her and do what was right for her. Caring for her is a constant and rather intense activity.”
As dinner ended, the waitress set down the check and also a box for the food Ginni was not able to finish. Jim was putting her food into the box when the waitress returned with a hand-written note. “Your check has been taken care of,” she told Jim. Surprised, he looked at the note: “Watching you guys tonight, it was one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a long time. You are one heck of a guy.”
Although the man signed his note, he had already left before it was delivered, and Jim has been unable to find him. “I want to tell this story, not because he said something nice about me, but to share the account of his generosity and amazing empathy for a complete stranger,” Jim says. “I had been feeling a little extra blue because Ginni has little idea of who I am, let alone that we are married and that it was our anniversary. But this really warmed my heart. God works in wonderful ways.”
My thought as I blink back tears: Jim and countless other caregivers need all the comfort we can offer them in their heroic jobs. If any of us see a similar couple or family, let’s think of something to lift their spirits, just as this unidentified Earth Angel did.
(C) 2005 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com
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