Day 15 - February 3
Three of us eat blueberry pancakes and share stories for an hour at father’s table. He eagerly shakes his head in agreement as Ben declares joyfully, “On February 12th I’m going to take your father--a group of us will pile in my car and drive two hours to the pancake place in Shortsville for opening day!”
The tiny Shortsville restaurant is seasonal. They produce all their own maple syrup on the farm. It is always an adventure driving the remote country roads to find the place. I remember it well from our college days when Harold and his housemates descended on the quaint winter spot, devouring plate after plate of the stacks until finally management rescinded the all-you-can-eat offer for their table.
Father’s face lights up whenever visitors come to the door. He looks forward to sharing his life with them and catching up on each one’s family, work, travels, satisfactions and travails. While everyone makes him smile, some cause his energy levels to soar. I soon learned father eats complete meals when enraptured in conversation with these visitors. Lost in animated
discussions and storytelling, he doesn’t even realize he is eating. Ben is one of those friends.
On previous mornings, father’s head drooped at breakfast. His lack of appetite and energy caused him to turn away half a piece of toast or the smallest bowl of cereal. “I just can’t eat,” he’d say, and ask for help walking back to the couch.
This morning the sun shines through custom lace window treatments in his living room and beams over to the kitchen, casting a glow behind father as he insists Ben have more pancakes. After the hour, Ben excuses himself, “I’d better be going or my wife will wonder what happened to me. I dropped Sarah off at church and came over here to visit instead of going in. It’s time to pick her up.”
Father starts to say, “I know what you can tell her, Ben...”
Then he launches into a story about the time he had a serious gall bladder attack in Hungary. He fills us in on the vivid details of the rustic, out-dated medical facilities in the communist bloc countries in the 70's, and the ordeal he faced trying to get out of the country as quickly as possible. This leads to tales of the wonderful friends he was ministering to and how the work in their churches flourished in spite of the communist spies and daily oppression. The account moves on to the Canandaigua, New York hospital where his beloved Dr. Sainsbury cleared his schedule to accommodate father as soon as he could get there.
Despite a time crunch for Ben and the fact that I had heard the stories many times before, we both are caught up in the telling. We listen in sunshine, watching the pleasure on father’s face. We understand the fears, the happiness, the love in each picture he draws.
He goes on to say he was in the Canandaigua hospital waiting for gall bladder surgery the next morning, when he discovered a fellow patient down the hall was a former parishioner from one of the local churches he had pastored. Then, one by one, he visited each room on the hall meeting more friends, and making new ones. In his hospital gown he prayed for each one at their bedsides.
He tells of a phone call coming to the nurses’ station asking if Rev. Gretz was indeed there, because the caller could not get through on his room phone--there was no answer.
Father’s eyes chuckle with his smile as he recounts the nurse answering the caller, “Oh, yes, he’s here. He’s on ministry business!”
The story comes to an end, we all shift positions ready for Ben to be on his way, when I remember, “Dad, didn’t you start out this whole story leading up to something? It seems like there was something else.”
He only hesitates a quick second before playfully saying to Ben, “Yes, you tell your wife you were on ministry business.”
Father didn’t live till February 12th for opening day in Shortsville. But we celebrated love and friendship that Sunday morning at our own all-you-can-eat breakfast.
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