8-25-02 Sunday Journal
MISS SALLIE'S BOY
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
Sallie Crenshaw was a shiny-souled black lady who
considered herself a missionary to inner city kids. I met her when I was heading
up a youth job-training program where we took some of the toughest school
drop-outs and placed them in work experience places.
Her Good Shepherd Day Care Center was one of them. We often referred to the
"graduates" of her center as "miracle kids" because when
Miss Sallie got through loving them and making them feel special, so many of
them miraculously changed.
Today in my journal there was a note from her dated 1986. Her sweet little hand
was trembling so much I could hardly read it.
It reminded me of her final days in a nursing home. I went there often to rub
her back, feet, arms and legs and one day she wanted me to wheel her out into
the sunlight.
Next time I saw her she said, "I really had some fun the last time you were
here. When you left, all the patients who saw us together were asking who you
were and I told them, ‘He's my boy.'"
I will always remember that merry, mischievous chuckle. And my response:
"Miss Sallie, it is such an honor for this little white boy to be called
one of your boys."
So much of her became a part of me, that I feel she was my engrafted second
mother. She's still right there in my heart, loving me back to wholeness when I
go astray.
BYOB
A friend was talking about two older persons who had been dating and were
experiencing some pushing of each other's old hot buttons. She said, "With
old lovers, it's BYOB -- bring your own baggage."
Honey, it ain't just old folks. We all bring old baggage to new relationships.
Some of it goes back to infancy. But I think it IS true that older lovers, in
establishing a relationship, must be more aware because they are toting more
baggage (experiences).
The solution is to check your baggage. Review it with each other. Be patient
with each other. Be kind. Just because you have been hurt many times doesn't
mean that everyone you meet is hell-bent to hurt you again.
Every time we rehash old miserable experiences, we are actually re-soldering the
wiring to our hot buttons. What's wrong with getting some of them disconnected?
As we check our baggage, we are often surprised at how much of it we discover we
can just toss away, like old socks with holes in them. Why hang on to old
memories with holes in them?
BYOB but check it often and throw away all the old dirty, musty stuff that's
full of holes.
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