Sometimes you need help to love someone. They are the difficult ones, those whom time has squeezed all happiness out of. Once upon a time, we had such a one that we were called upon to serve. 

Her name was Mrs. K.  

K  for Kontankerous!

She would growl into the phone, "I need someone from your office there to bring me some vitamins! Two bottles!!! Today!"  She couldn't hear well, so we would have to yell back that we were on the way.

"Let me go!" I would almost always jump at the chance to go. 

"I'm going to make her smile today," I would say. 

She always thought I was the doctor's daughter. Heehee! Happy face!

" You look gorgeous today, Mrs. K! What a lovely dress you are wearing," I wasn't pretending. She always dressed for company. Me. 

She had been abused by a first husband years and years before. Her terribly harsh responses were a symptom of the scars upon her heart. If she looked back too far, she found intolerable pain, so she kept her face forward, her upper lip stiff. Her eyes were trained for bitterness and scowl.

She invited me in her house one day. She opened her cabinet where her vitamins were kept. It was then I began to wonder if she was calling me to come for reasons other than her need for vitamins. The cupboard was full of bottles identical to the ones that I held in my hand. She gave me an impish glance. Where would she put the vitamins that I'd just brought? The overflow? Awkward moment, indeed.

I became aware of her birthday and sent her cards. Someone was making it easy to love her.  One year I thought, "I'll send her flowers, too." He was showing me ways to soften her . . . the helper.

She had the reaction of one who had not been given a gift for years when I took her a homemade, fresh out of the oven bread pudding for Christmas last year. I took my camera with me and I took her picture. I would post it here, but that would not be good (hippa). She hugged me when I left her that day.

I took to her, Mrs. K. I cared very deeply. I wonder about her now. Who is taking vitamins to her? Is she still in that little white house with the red brick chimney on the north side? She was getting so confused when I left. Perhaps she no longer remembers she took vitamins. 

I miss her. If she remembers, I bet she misses us too, that "good old doctor and his marvelous daughter."

I can't take pride in the love I felt for her . . . I feel it was a gift for both of us. I got to love her, and finally, with a bit of time she loved me back.

Lord, please bless Mrs. K today. Thank you for her. Amen