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| Category: Bed & Breakfast |
Date published: April 8, 2005 |
 "Grandma...what's a boarding house?" I laughed, and knew my son must have told her about the live-in guest we'd soon receive.
They aren't new ... these live-in guests. My husband and I have been taking in family members since our "sticky-chicken poor" days, and some non-members, too...like the gal I attempted to save from the world's oldest profession.
Now, before you send the homeless to my door, just know that I now restrict my "open door policy" to family members only.
What is a life that doesn't give? I wrote the following poem on that subject years ago.
OBSCURITY
To have lived, but never mattered, To have died, but never missed, Ashes upon the sea were scattered Without a single goodbye kiss.
A life soon forgotten, Is the life that never gave, To anyone beyond himself, So selfish to the grave.
No ripple upon the sea, The pebble just too small, Never made a difference, No difference here at all.
How sad it is to live a life, But life had never lived. Just dust upon a lonely sea... This one that couldn't give.
Some say, "I would help, BUT my house is too small." Could it be, instead, that it's their hearts that are too small? I can hear Doctor Phil now, can't you? So often I hear the word "Enabler."
"Well, yes, how did you guess?" I say, tongue in cheek. I confess, I am a co-dependant and that probably makes me an enabler, too, BUT I'm also a Christian. Oh, how often those two become intertwined.
I've often wondered whether persons who opened their doors to the apostles after Christ's crucifixion or even Christ Himself when He walked on the earth, if they, too, were considered "enablers"? Is it wrong to lift a hand to someone in need? Or, perhaps, in need of a hand until his or her wings begin to work again?
Many have entered through the revolving doors of my "boarding house". At times, there was no where for them to sleep except for a sofa or the floor. One even experienced a ghost in the place he slept within our rented house years ago, but that didn't deter others from coming. Ah, I got your attention with that ghost thing, didn't I? To this day, we can't be certain it was truly a ghost my brother-in-law saw, but he wasn't alone. My eldest daughter, now 41, was a toddler, no older than a year at the time. She slept in a crib in the same upstairs bedroom as my husband and myself. My brother-in-law slept on a twin bed in the attic space next to this same bedroom. On the night the ghost was seen, or, whatever, our little daughter said "Hi," to something, or someone. Seconds later, my husband felt, and saw, a shadow pass by the bed, but thought nothing of it...until morning, that is, when my brother-in-law mentioned having seen and felt someone pass by his bed during the night. It scared him to death, and thereafter, refused to return to that attic space, but slept on the sofa instead. As for me, I saw nothing.
Another one is coming soon, a nephew. He will share our home, along with our son and granddaughter who has remained with us for some time now. Because of God's grace, and a little hard work on our part, we have come a long way from our "sticky-chicken poor" days. God has truly blessed us throughout the years. I tell myself, if we opened our doors back then, when all we could offer a person was a spot on the floor and a slice of bread, how can we say "No" now that we have so much more?
And so we will say when he comes, "Welcome to our home, Josh."
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