Some of you will remember my request for prayers for my friend "L" whose left arm was amputated Friday halfway up the forearm.  All went very well and she came home Sunday, believe it or not....but she has gone back to the hospital to meet two of the surgery team because she's apparently got an infection.
PLEASE keep her in your prayers..she so appreciated all of you for that!  Thanks.
Z

For those of you who prayed, "L" did GREAT! 10 hrs of surgery...amputated BELOW the elbow! thanks for your prayers! Z (now please weigh in below)

A Funeral I wish you could have been to

A friend's mother died and her funeral was yesterday.  I attended.  I'm close to this friend's beautiful wife and he and she have 3 outstanding sons.  This family is black.   The funeral was amazing.

The eldest grandson got up to speak about his grandmother, who was 91 when she passed on.  He talked about how she taught him to look people in the eye when you're speaking with them. He remembers that.   He told us how he used to love to spend time at his grandparents' home and watch cartoons he couldn't watch at home.  One day, something in the cartoon mentioned pork chops and so this young man as a little boy said he found himself saying out loud "I want pork chops"....Immediately, he saw his grandmother grab her purse and coat and head out the door.   He didn't realize it, but she was going to buy him pork chops for dinner. He was very little, he added, and didn't even know what pork chops were!   This stayed with this twenty-something young man all these years....what a lesson modeling teaches us.  He learned of love and quiet giving that day.  He said that, after she died, he felt she was still there in the house she'd lived in for so many years as he put his head down on her empty pillow and thought of her.  I couldn't help but cry.   I thought of this great woman who worked tirelessly for her Baptist Church and for the NAACP and for young people to have cultural opportunities they might not have had, and knew that, even with all of that community work, it was the love and the lessons she left behind to her family which meant the most.

Her son, my friend, told how he was going to be soloing at Carnegie Hall the next night and he called his mother to see how she was feeling.  He was a grown man filled with fear that any performer gets but didn't want her to hear it.  She asked if he was fine, and he assured her he was.  But, a mother reads between the lines, doesn't she.  She said "Honey, the Lord has laid out a big table for you....'he prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies...'  You go eat from that table, you can't just 'eat and run'!  You remember to read that when we hang up."  He did, and he did a wonderful job the next night. 

I gazed around the church, which was about 99% full of Black Americans, and thought about how beautifully, respectfully dressed these people were.  No cut-offs and flip flops, but dark suits on that warm day, women in suits and high heels and stockings even in that heat.   Eloise had dressed like a lady and they sure weren't going to do any less for her, let me tell you.  From the pulpit, one man said he'd never called her Eloise, he's always called her Mrs.S(***) (*I don't want to put her last name here for privacy sake).  She was that kind of woman.

I thought about this blog and how often comments are filled with anger at the Black community for the crime and lousy politicians we all hear about.  You would sure never know any of that existed while you were with this crowd.  Just like you don't think of  White crime when you're at a White funeral.  The people I was surrounded with yesterday were concerned that I hadn't got a church bulletin (they'd run out by the time I got there) and shared theirs with me so I could read whatever I wanted to see on it (who was talking, what the name of a particular hymn was, etc.).  We laughed and wept at the same lines as friend after friend and family member after family member paid homage to an incredible woman. 

This was about being American and losing a great person from the community.  This had nothing to do with Black and White.  The people there were no worse and no better than any White bunch in any church.  Except, I have seen some White funerals with people not dressed with as much dignity as these people were yesterday.

This was all about INTEGRITY and RESPECT and DIGNITY. HONOR.  Those words were there with all of us as much as if they'd been plastered in large letters across the altar.  ELOISE dressed appropriately, ELOISE was kind, ELOISE gave of herself to her community and her family, ELOISE gave everything she did all she had.  And she left her stamp on all the folks at that funeral yesterday.   I thought how much I wished I could ever be like Eloise.

Eloise might have been White, but she wasn't. It makes absolutely no difference.  Black or White, she was total LADY, a woman of love and discipline and great faith.  She was a woman every child on this planet should have for a grandmother, black or white.

This is what I left thinking:  we hear a lot about the problems in the Black community and we forget to remember the problems are no different than that of the White community.  And the good stuff deserves to be said about both colors, too, about all Americans, some in each color doing their best, some in each color not doing their best.

I'll just leave you with that..........I wanted, somehow, to share this experience with you.  So, there you go. I wish you could have been with me.    I'll share one more thing, her son said she told him she was unhappy a few days before she passed away.  He asked her why.   She asked if he was okay with the fact that she was going (she'd told them all, for a year, she was eager to get to heaven and be with the Lord and with her husband who died shortly after Mr Z did, nearly 2 years ago).  Her son told her he was very okay with it.  When he had finally assured her that he knew where she was going and that he knew she'd be happier there and that he was happy for her, this lady who he said very rarely ever used this expression,  raised both her arms and said "Praise God!"    She died about two days later, when she knew her family would be okay.

Eloise, you were QUITE a woman.........we should all be like you.  Black OR White.  Color has NOTHING to do with it.

z

Check THIS out!

I don't mind going to the grocery store unless it's what I call 'a big shopping'....you know, all the normal stuff plus all those really heavy things you hate to carry home but finally have to? Mr. Z did about 70% of the grocery shopping mostly because he worked here at home and liked to get out as much as he could. Sometimes, we shopped together and he always did the heavy lifting. And, I DO buy heavy things like all of us do; large bottles of cranberry juice, heavy milk cartons, canned stuff, a couple of bottles of wine, cleaning supplies, large water containers, etc. So, shopping/lifting is not my favorite thing and I procrastinate so badly that I really need a lot of stuff when I go. (and yes, Mr. Z spoiled me, I know that)

Today at the checkout, when the girl was filling my bags, she asked as they always do "Can I help you out to the car?" And, as I always do, I joked "NO, but I wish you could help me from my car to my HOUSE when I get there." There are usually a LOT of bags and I sometimes have to park a little down the street, and then there are a few steps up to my front door, so it's often not an easy endeavor. And yes, this is not a hardship for most people, but I'm admittedly a bit lazy and really can't carry very heavy things. Today, something happened I had to share.

When I got home from the store, trunk full of bags, there was a parking spot smack dab in front of my front door but the spot was just a little too tight to pull into. I saw there was a fellow sitting in the driver's seat of the pickup truck whose moving would allow me enough room, so I pulled up next to him and smiled and, taking a big chance considering the reaction I might get, I gestured that his moving back a few feet would help me park there..... He pointed his thumb to the back of his truck as if "move back?" I nodded my head and he moved his truck back. He parked again and I went to his open window and said "Thanks so much....I have a lot of groceries and being able to park this close thanks to you really helped." I opened my trunk and took two bags up to my front door, left them there, unlocked and opened my front door, and walked back down and across the sidewalk to my car to start the unloading and the young man yelled out his window "Could you use my help?"

A young guy, about 23 yrs old, big and husky, Hispanic (I think) and he wants to help me? I said "I couldn't impose, but thanks so much for asking!" He said "No problem!" and, as I stood at at the back of my car thinking what an incredibly nice kid he must be, he actually got out of his truck, picked up a bunch of bags from my trunk and, instead of putting the bags next to the ones I'd left at the front door, he went right INTO the house! WHAT? I thought "I don't even KNOW this kid and he's helping me..... and he's IN my house!" I have to admit he was inside a few more minutes than I felt comfortable with but I forced myself to stand there, not run in and check. He came out, big smile, and took more bags, and then we both brought bags in.

Before he went outside to get the last few bags, I said "You must have awfully nice parents" and he said "They are!" He put the rest of the bags where he'd put the first batch, on the dining room table, and I walked him to the door, noticing that he'd closed my trunk for me, too!

Isn't it kind of sad this nice gesture should be so unusual that I'd feel I had to blog it? Wouldn't you think this should be 'normal'? Maybe it once was, but it's not anymore, not in a big city like LA, anyway. It made me feel so good that I had to share it. I had told him he gave me back my faith in people and he laughed!

We get so mired down with bad news and 'learning' not to trust, don't we? I hope this young man really heard how grateful I was. Do you have a 'kindness of strangers' story? Wasn't this a nice one?

z