Thursday, April 26, 2007

Daring to Ask


He was an older man with a weatherworn face. “I’m getting too old to do this,” he said to me as he crawled into the dark, narrow crawl space under my house for a termite inspection, one of those necessary steps in closing on a house. After a few minutes he climbed back out and ditched his coveralls. He started coughing and I offered him a glass of water to chase the dirt from his throat.

As is so often in the South, there was time for a little chitchat before the next inspection, and he shared what happened on one of his calls the previous day. After he had finished his work, the man noticed that the customer was doing some packing and asked, “Downsizing?” The woman suddenly burst into tears. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Slowly and tearfully, the woman related how her husband had abruptly left her. The husband took some furniture, and she was left to sell the house and move the rest of their belongings and her daughter. “I’m renting a truck and moving tomorrow and I don’t have anyone to help me.” The man with the weatherworn face said, “Well, you do now.” “I’ll be over here tomorrow afternoon.” He quickly called up a buddy and asked if he could help him move a ‘friend.’ The buddy yelled out to another friend who was over at his house, “Think you can help move somebody tomorrow?” “Sure.”

And as simple as that, the woman had three men coming to help her move. She, a freshly single mom with a daughter. Them, three men willing to give up a Saturday that could have been spent fishing, resting or watching NASCAR with a round or two of beers.

“Don’t eat,” she told the man with the weatherworn face as he was leaving, “I’ll have sandwiches for you.” “All right,” he said. “we’ll be here for lunch.”

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

A very sweeet story! Thank you.

Sheila said...

Thanks, Jay. That means a lot coming from someone I know to be cut from the same cloth as the man with the weatherworn face.

Miss Trashahassee said...

That was precious!

Naomi said...

Thanks for posting this Sheila. It's so nice to read a story like this about some good samaritans. When you hear about people like this, I always think it restores your faith in human nature.

vanishingword said...

That's touching.

Jackie said...

Great posting.

Reminded me of the Ant Man we had visit us when I was a child in Zimbabwe. All he ever discussed was the termites but with such love I am sure he used to take the Queen termite somewhere safe when he removed her.

Anne Coleman said...

How wonderful! It's so good to read of something GOOD in today's world.

Marion said...

What a heart-warming tale. Once upon a time, this kind of thing happened often enough that I wasn't surprised when I was told about a story like this...but it's been a long time.

It seems that helping others has been forgotten in the daily rush of living. My hat's off to the man with the weatherworn face!