ShareThisSometimes the best we can do is feed one another. Stomachs or souls, all need to be filled.
Have you ever seen a blind man fry a dead chicken? My brother, blind all his life, has been cooking for years.
He's fried his own chickens, washed his shirts, shaved the whiskers off his face, if he felt like it, and asked for nothing more but to live his own life.
When his wife of 10 years, who was blind as well, fell ill with cancer, he took care of her as best he could, fixed her meals, brought her tea, held her hand in the hospital.
After she died, he found comfort in the fellowship of the good people in his church -- and particularly in their food. He seldom missed church, and never missed a potluck.
Some months ago, when events occurred that forced him to leave the familiarity of his home, he moved in temporarily with our sister, God bless her, some 35 miles away.
It dealt a rough blow to his fierce independence. Aside from making sandwiches, he can no longer cook (a gas range is not the same as electric). He can't get down her basement steps to do laundry. And where he once took a bus or called a cab, he now has to rely on her.
Lucky for him, she sees to it that he's well-fed, clean-dressed and gets wherever he needs to go -- except church on Sundays when she works at the hospital.
Hardly ideal, they had settled into a routine when I arrived two weeks ago. My hope was to be useful, try to get Joe back in his own place before I left.
We are still working on that. I leave tomorrow. My hope has waned from being useful to trying not to be totally useless.
It's not the first time I've tried to "rescue" someone -- a troubled mother, a struggling child, a dying husband -- only to realize, time and again, that some things are beyond my control. Most things, really. Especially the lives of those I love.
So where do we turn when all else fails? That's right, food; starting with food for the soul.
Sunday morning, I drove my brother 35 miles to worship at his home church with folks who have been like family to him through times good and bad.
Jesus himself could not have hoped for a warmer welcome.
One by one, they hugged my brother, shook his hand, said how they'd missed him. He knew them instantly by their voices, told me all their names.
I wish you could've seen him basking in their love; I wish you could've heard him when the preacher asked him to pray.
Unfortunately, they were not doing a potluck. So we bought BLTs and took a drive around the lake, because I like scenery and Joe likes how I drive (said it was more fun than the roller coaster at Myrtle Beach).
That night, after two weeks of eating out, I decided to cook: Pasta with chicken, salad with beets and, in a departure from our Southern roots, vegetables that were steamed, not fried.
We ate it all, the three of us, my brother, sister and I. Joe said it was the best meal he'd ever put in his mouth. (If our sister took offense, she was too busy eating to show it.) Then we sat for a while reminiscing, recalling our separate versions of the same memories, different sides of the same coins.
You can learn a lot tossing old family coins.
Finally, when it was time to clear the table, Joe stood, grinning like a mule eating briars, and handed me his plate.
"This has been a fine day," he said. "Church this morning, a ride around the lake, all this good food, and getting to fellowship together. I loved it."
I will feast on that for a while.
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at www.sharonrandall.com.)
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