"No, there's nothing wrong with the dress," the man shot back. "No one in her right mind would pay this much for a dress." He went on to say other things, too, all designed for intimidation.
I made the exchangeher dress for her carefully saved money. The man took "his" money, shoved it into his pocket and ordered, "C'mon, let's get out of here." He led the way as they left.
The incident seemed like a scene in a movie that's out of sequence and doesn't quite belong. Incomplete, like a puzzle that's missing just one last piece; like falling hail in
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a rainstorm on a hot sunny summer's day, like a Christmas tree with a star but no lights or ornaments, or someone showing up at a formal banquet in a bathing suit. It just didn't fit. In the short time I'd helped Molly, I'd seen only her beauty, her gentle nature and genuine desire to please her husband. Knowing little else, I assumed the recipient of such love would behave in a way that merited such treatmentwould even treat the giver in a like manner.
Thoughts of that incident haunted me for several days. It seemed so abrupt, so unjust. My first thoughts centered around how I would feel if this had happened to me. I concluded that not only would I earn my own money in life, but make my own decisions, as well.
Still unable to put the incident out of my mind, I wondered if he knew how much thought had gone into her purchase. If only he knew the loving actions that went with the purchase, perhaps then he might have let her keep the dress, or handled the situation differentlyor at least treated his wife differently. Then again, perhaps he wouldn't.
The following weeks, I saw that the dress was marked down even further. Each time my eyes caught sight of it, I felt a sense of disquiet.
While alphabetizing the returned merchandise slips from our department for the store's accounting office several days later, I came upon the couple's return receipt. As though it were an omen of some kind, the man's telephone number stood out. Deciding it was a small risk, I called the man at his work.
"Sir," I said, "I hope I'm not disturbing you. I'm the salesclerk who waited on you and your wife when you came in to return a dress she had purchased."
"Yes, I remember you," came the disgruntled reply. "What do you need?"
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''I may be out of line here," I began, "but, well, your wife made such an impression on me, and I thought you ought to know . . . " the line remained silent so I continued, "what a truly beautiful woman she is and not only in her outward appearance, but in the love and devotion she portrays to you and your new son. I could tell you weren't happy about the money she had spent on that dress, but it seemed so important to your wife to look beautiful for you and make you proud of her at your reunion, and she was so pleased to find the price had been substantially discounted." Drawing a deep breath, I continued, "She honestly bought it with you in mind, and now the dress has just been marked down even further. Can't you let her have it?" I pleaded.
It seemed so logical and simple to me. In a last effort to convey my message, I added, "I guess what I'm trying to say is something my father taught me when he said, 'It's good to value the things money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the precious things in life that money can't buy.'"
My hopes rose at what I saw as a thoughtful silence, before being crushed when he answered, "You're right, you're out of line. And I think I made my intentions clear when I was in the store. But thanks for thinking of us." With that, he hung up. No "good-bye," just the harsh click of the phoneour communication severed.
Having been so thoroughly dismissed, I felt discounted, like an uneducated schoolgirl working in a clothing store. These feelings didn't find a home for long; I'd known the risk before calling; I expressed my feelings. I wanted him to know what I thought. He was the one who was emotionally illiterate here, not me. It was worth the calleven though I wished things could have turned out differently.
When I came to work a couple of days later, I was greeted by a bouquet of white daisies with a note that
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read, "Thank you for your thoughtfulness." The card held no signature.
"When did this arrive?" I asked Helen, my coworker.
"Yesterday," she responded.
"Do you have any idea who they're from?"
"We assumed you had a secret admirer!"
Puzzled, I went about my work as usual.
I was rehanging some apparel when an excited, vaguely familiar voice said, "I was hoping I'd find you here!"
"Oh, it's good to see you again Molly," I said, surprised. Why hadn't I put it together? Of course the daisies had been from her, a peace offering for her husband's rudeness.
"He bought it for me!" she said gleefully. She didn't have any doubts that I'd remember what "it" was, as her words seem to burst forth in her obvious delight.
Pleasantly stunned by her words, I found myself grinning as widely as she was. "Oh, I'm so happy for youthe dress was made for you!"
"But that's not all," she went on, unfastening her purse to retrieve something even as she spoke. "In fact, it's not even the best part. I just had to show youlook at the note he put in with it when he gave it to me." Unconsciously touching it to her heart, as if it were infinitely precious to her, she then thrust the note toward me, obviously eager to share her joy.
Unfolding it carefully, my smile at her happiness still in place, I read the note's bold handwriting.
Darling,
I'm sorry that I've let the pressure of my work and being a good provider cause me to lose sight of just what it is I'm working for. I'm also sorry it took me this long to realize how much you deserve this dress. It's taken me too long to realize a lot of thingsincluding how
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beautiful you'll look wearing it. And most importantly, I've realized just how lucky I am to have you, and your love. Thank you for loving me as you do.
Yours Forever,
XOXOXO
I felt her watch me as I read it silently, and yet, it was her eyes that were moist with tears. She was no doubt, rereading it with her heart, each word memorized, forever etched in her heart. The fullness of her heart touched me as much as the humility and love in the words of his note.
"That's wonderful, Molly," I said, really meaning it.
"I thought so too," she replied. "I just had to let you know. Hey, lovely flowers," she said gazing at the daisies sitting next to the cash register. "Are they from your boyfriend?" Not waiting for a reply, she continued, ''You know, my husband sent me a bouquet of roses yesterday. Oh, I just love that man."
I said nothing. There seemed something wise in my decision not to tell her about the call I made to her husbandor the white daisies he had sent me for the wake-up callthanking me for reminding him how special he was to her.
Hearts at work. Amazing aren't they?
Bettie B. Youngs
Excerpted from Gifts of the Heart
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The Tiger's Whisker:
A Korean Folk Tale
A young woman by the name of Yun Ok came one day to the house of a mountain hermit to seek his help. The hermit was a sage of great renown and a maker of charms and magic potions.
When Yun Ok entered his house, the hermit said without raising his eyes from the fireplace into which he was looking: "Why are you here?"
Yun Ok said, "Oh, Famous Sage, I am in distress! Make me a potion!"
"Yes, yes, make a potion! Everyone needs potions! Can we cure a sick world with a potion?"
"Master," Yun Ok replied, "if you do not help me, I am truly lost!"
"Well, what is your story?' the hermit said, resigned at last to listen.
"It is my husband," Yun Ok said. "He is very dear to me. For the past three years he has been away fighting in the wars. Now that he has returned, he hardly speaks to me, or to anyone else. If I speak, he doesn't seem to hear. When he talks at all, it is roughly. If I serve him food not
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to his lik
ing, he pushes it aside and angrily leaves the room. Sometimes when he should be working in the rice field, I see him sitting idly on top of the hill, looking toward the sea."
"Yes, so it is sometimes when young men come back from the wars," the hermit said. "Go on."
"There is no more to tell, Learned One. I want a potion to give my husband so that he will be loving and gentle, as he used to be."
"Ha, so simple, is it?" the hermit asked. "A potion! Very well, come back in three days and I will tell you what we shall need for such a potion."
Three days later, Yun Ok returned to the home of the mountain sage. "I have looked into it," he told her. "Your potion can be made. But the most essential ingredient is the whisker of a living tiger. Bring me this whisker and I will give you what you need."
"The whisker of a living tiger!" Yun Ok said. "How could I possibly get it?"
"If the potion is important enough, you will succeed," the hermit said. He turned his head away, not wishing to talk any more.
Yun Ok went home. She thought a great deal about how she would get the tiger's whisker. Then one night when her husband was asleep, she crept from her house with a bowl of rice and meat sauce in her hand. She went to the place on the mountainside where the tiger was known to live. Standing far off from the tiger's cave, she held out the bowl of food, calling the tiger to come and eat. The tiger did not come.
The next night Yun Ok went again, this time a little bit closer. Again she offered a bowl of food. Every night Yun Ok went to the mountain, each time a few steps nearer the tiger's cave than the night before. Little by little, the tiger grew accustomed to seeing her there.
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One night Yun Ok approached to within a stone's throw of the tiger's cave. This time the tiger came a few steps toward her and stopped. The two of them stood looking at one another in the moonlight. It happened again the following night, and this time they were so close that Yun Ok could talk to the tiger in a soft, soothing voice. The next night, after looking carefully into Yun Ok's eyes, the tiger ate the food that she held out for him. After that when Yun Ok came in the night, she found the tiger waiting for her on the trail. When the tiger had eaten, Yun Ok could gently rub his head with her hand. Nearly six months had passed since the night of her first visit. At last one night, after caressing the animal's head, Yun Ok said, "Oh, Tiger, generous animal, I must have one of your whiskers. Do not be angry with me!"
And she snipped off one of the whiskers.
The tiger did not become angry, as she had feared he might. Yun Ok went down the trail, not walking but running, with the whisker clutched tightly in her hand.
The next morning she was at the mountain hermit's house just as the sun was rising from the sea. "Oh, Famous One!" she cried, "I have it! I have the tiger's whisker! Now you can make me the potion you promised so that my husband will be loving and gentle again!"
The hermit took the whisker and examined it. Satisfied that it had really come from a tiger, he leaned forward and dropped it into the fire that burned in his fireplace.
"Oh, sir? the young woman called in anguish. "What have you done with it!"
"Tell me how you obtained it," the hermit said.
"Why, I went to the mountain each night with a little bowl of food. At first I stood afar, and I came a little closer each time, gaining the tiger's confidence. I spoke gently and soothingly to him, to make him understand I wished him only good. I was patient. Each night I brought him
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food, knowing that he would not eat. But I did not give up. I came again and again. I never spoke harshly. I never reproached him. And at last one night he took a few steps toward me. A time came when he would meet me on the trail and eat out of the bowl that I held in my hands. I rubbed his head, and he made happy sounds in his throat. Only after that did I take the whisker."
"Yes, yes," the hermit said, "you tamed the tiger and won his confidence and love."
"But you have thrown the whisker in the fire!" Yun Ok cried. "It is all for nothing?
"No, I do not think it is all for nothing," the hermit said. "The whisker is no longer needed. Yun Ok, let me ask you, is a man more vicious than a tiger? Is he less responsive to kindness and understanding? If you can win the love and confidence of a wild and blood-thirsty animal by gentleness and patience, surely you can do the same with your husband?"
Hearing this, Yun Ok stood speechless for a moment. Then she went down the trail, turning over in her mind the truth she had learned in the house of the mountain hermit.
Harold Courlander
Submitted by Carter Case
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2
ON KINDNESS
Spread love everywhere you go: First of all in your own house . . . let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.
Mother Teresa
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Hi, Cornelius
To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
Samuel Johnson
I had been writing a newspaper column for almost 20 years. As part of my work I had seen some of the darkest and unhappiest aspects of human nature, and I had written about them. It was beginning to get to me.
There were nights when I would go home from work and question the very nature of humanity, and wonder if there was any answer to the unremitting cruelty I was observing and writing about so often. Part of this had to do with a particular case I had been covering. The case involved one of the worst crimes I had ever encountered.
A beautiful, bright-eyed, four-year-old boy named Lattie McGee had been systematically tortured over the course of a long Chicago summer. He had been beaten, he had been starved, he had been hanged upside down in a locked and darkened closet for nights on end.
All that summer his life dwindled agonizingly away in that closet, and no one knew he was there; no one heard his
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muffled cries. After his death, when the police discovered what had been done to him, I wrote column after column about the people who had murdered him. So many cases of impoverished children from forgotten neighborhoods get lost in the court system. I wanted to make sure that Lattie McGee received justice, or something close to it.
With all the public interest in Lattie because of the columns, the story of his brother, whose name was Cornelius Abraham, did not receive as much attention. The same things that were done to Lattie were done to Cornelius, too. Somehow he survived, He watched his brother slowly being killed and was unable to stop the killers. Cornelius' brave testimony in court is what helped to convict them.
By the end of the trial Cornelius had just turned nine. He was a thin, extremely quiet boy; with his little brother dead and his mother and her boyfriend in prison, he was living with other relatives. The two great loves of his life were reading and basketball.
In one of the columns I had written about Lattie, I had mentioned Cornelius' passion for basketball. Steve Schanwald, a vice president of the Chicago Bulls, had read the column and left a message at my office. Though tickets to Bulls' games were without exception sold out, Schanwald said that if Cornelius would like to come to a game he would be sure there were tickets available. Jim Bigoness, the Cook County assistant state's attorney who had delicately prepared Cornelius' testimony for the trial, and I took him to the game.
To every Chicago youngster who follows basketball, the stadium was a shrine. Think of where Cornelius once was, locked up and tormented and hurt. And now he was in the stadium, about to see his first Bulls game.
A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul Page 7