It took my breath away

In the morning some people take longer to "surface". Well, it's not too bad with me, but when I go to breakfast I do have to programme myself for the whole operation. Any step I forget and I have to keep getting up to get what I need. And I don't have a cooked breakfast either. I don't even toast my bread! So the operation is kept down to its absolute minimum.

Recently I went to Sydney for a seminar. At the 'convention centre' one felt at home, because the treatment was the same: you gets your own or you goes without. However, the company was good... (in Italy they call Jesuits "The Company of Jesus.") and the seminar went smoothly, according to plan. When it was over I had some 24 hours to myself.

I caught the train to visit my sister but had to await her return from work. I knew where she parked her car, beside the church, and waited. I finished reading my book. I bought her some flowers. But I still had to wait. So I took out my recorder, propped my music on the bonnet, and started to play. "Uncle Andy, how embarrassing" said my niece, "I wouldn't be seen dead with you." One man stopped to talk to me ... but I didn't have a hat.

Eventually my sister came. She took me home and we talked and talked and talked, staying up late with her husband, late enough to see all their family coming home to roost.

I slept in the next morning, so as not to get in the way of the workers. Eventually I got up and gently made my way to the kitchen. My sister offered me a choice of fruit and I opted for the grapefruit. She freed the flesh from the skin, separated the segments, sugared the lot, then went into the dining room for a glass bowl and served it on a plate. I enjoyed that, the fruit, the attention, the lot. As we chatted she took the things away and we were waiting for the bread to toast and the tea to brew. It was in that interval that she filled the glass bowl with water and placed it before me. This took me by surprise and it must have registered on my face because she said: "So you can rinse your fingers." It simply took my breath away. Such courtesy, such attention. Perhaps it was the environment, or the magic morning hour. Or was it the contrast with my present natural habitat, my all male environment, my "working" conditions? It simply took me by surprise. And a pleasant surprise, I might add.

Dear Lord, Your are full of surprises. Deo gratias.