There are some really wonderful people in my life. Really, really wonderful people. Today, for example, Carol came, and she dusted the yellow pollen off the blinds in my living room, cleaned out my vacuum and vacuumed my living room. She also swept my wooden floors.
Faten went to Costco, but not before she phoned and got orders from me and the neighbors. Then she brought the food and other necessaries back, but she didn’t leave until she had made lunch for me and the children and helped the boys start a load of laundry. She also cleaned up the kitchen.
But before either of these wonderful people came, Bonnie was here bringing bagels, coffee and a fruit salad for breakfast. I was really glad of that, because making breakfast this morning was just feeling Too Hard for me.
Wonderful, wonderful people.
And then, this afternoon, Everett and I decided it was time to open the cashews, the great big plastic jar of cashews that Faten brought us from Costco. We were wanting a mid-afternoon snack, and there it was. You could see the cashews in there, salted to perfection, many of them whole. We wanted them very much.
But we couldn’t open the jar. He tried. I tried. His buddy Clay tried. Then I tried using a towel around the lid for friction. Then Everett held the jar and turned it one way, while I turned the lid the other way. Only it wouldn’t turn.
The lid is wide, which is good, because that means there is plenty of room to remove a full fist from the jar. But that also means that my hand isn’t large enough to get a really Firm Grip on the lid. At least, not firm enough to get it open.
What’s the big idea? Why put the lid on that tightly? To what end do we do this, oh Kirkland Brand Cashews? We can see the cashews in there, in all their salted glory. We have paid for the cashews. But we can’t get at them.
And then I had a stroke of genius. I sent the boys next door, to my dear, invalid neighbor Mark, my ambulance companion on the day of The Fall. He is home with wheelchair and walker, and it was he who gave me the idea to order cashews this morning, because he ordered them himself. And Mark opened the jar.
Did I mention that I have wonderful people in my life? Well I do.
The boys brought the jar home, lid loosened, and we peeled off the Ridiculously Unnecessary safety seal. We ate.
Clay’s blue eyes sparkled with every cashew. “These are yummy, Rebecca,” he said. And Everett, who adores cashews, couldn’t eat them fast enough. But between- or was it during?- bites, he managed to say that he had prayed we’d get the jar open. “Because that’s what you do,” he said. “You ask God for the things that you want.”
I think God cares about cashews. They were His idea, after all.
As were Everett, Clay, Mark, Bonnie, Faten, and Carol. Wonderful, wonderful people.
