A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.
The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.
The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. "We must do something about father," said the son. "I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor."
So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl! When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometime he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.
The four-year-old watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, "What are you making?" Just as sweetly, the boy responded, "Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up." The four-year-old smiled and went back to work. The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.
http://www.spiritual-short-stories.com/spiritual-short-story-478-The+Wooden+Bowl.html
Replies
This brought tears to my eyes...thank you Semile for sharing this timeless message with a moral. It brought tears to my mind because my Mom was in a nursing home for many years because she had alzeimers, and mealtime at the nursing home was such a sad affair. So many of the patients with alzeimers had trouble or completely could not feed themselves or even hold on to the utinsels, my mother included, so my Dad was at the home every day with love carefully feeding my Mom at every mealtime. I could not understand how the staff could just set the food in front of the patients and just walked away and came back in a half hou or so and cleared off all the dishes...and most of the patients were just sitting there with the food untouched because they could not feed themselves. It broke my heart to see that, and I could not figure out why they did not have people to help those patients get the food into them...they were all so skinny and sickly looking and looked so sad because they had lost the skill of handling the fork and spoons and even in some cases the knack of chewing. How could anyone not help them to eat....I thanked God every day that my dad spent a lot of his day there in the home with my Mom and always fed her every meal. How could a home that claimed to care about the patients not help them to eat? I know they could not force them to eat, but at least they could have helped or tried or cut up the meat or something or put the food on the spoons for them or something, and encourage them to eat. This story brought that memory all back to me. People need to have compassion for the eldering and afflicted, how can people turn their backs on old folks and not care, and think that old folks are just a bother??
pretty sure its just a story.
Very humbling and touching, thanks for posting Semile.
Beautiful, I enjoyed that!