I was only four when Mrs. Muddle adopted me for a week. With my mother in the hospital and my father needing help, she must have seen me pulling my wagon complete with a cargo of grasshoppers along 8th Avenue on "Prairie Heights," looking sad and forlorn. And so she took me in. That's what neighbors did in those days. Although I may have been a handful, Mrs. Muddle smiled a lot during that week. A four-year-old doesn't remember much. But he remembers a smile. I wasn't her first child. She had five others. But none of them seemed to mind my intrusion.
My own Dad came along and tucked me in each night, so I knew all would be well. But one day it wasn't. One day, they tell me, I found a fresh jar of sweet pickles in Mrs. Muddle's fridge. By the time I was full, the jar was empty. Mrs. Muddle didn't say much, just held my little forehead as I transferred those sweet pickles from my stomach to her sink. She had every right to say, "Ha! It serves you right, you gluttonous little orphan." But she didn't. I was worth more than a jar of pickles to her, I suppose. And so I enjoyed that week. I enjoyed her smile. But I can't face sweet pickles to this day.
Many years have passed.
On a Friday afternoon a month before Christmas, I joined 300 others in an over-flowing church to celebrate Mrs. Muddle's life. And mourn her passing. At the front, beneath a rugged wooden cross, sat a few hundred brightly-wrapped shoeboxes, waiting for December and the volunteers at Samaritan's Purse to scatter them Santa-like around the world. The coordinator for Operation Christmas Child in our community is Tony Hanson. Mr. Hanson is one of those elderly people who views retirement as an opportunity to do things he always wanted to do before. When he grows up, he wants to be a child, he'll tell you. And so he laughs often, and his wrinkles are in all the right places. He's even apt to tell you a joke or two or toss a wise saying your way when you shake hands after church: "He who laughs last thinks slowest," is one of them.
Standing to his feet during the funeral, Mr. Hanson took one of the boxes to the pulpit and smiled at the crowd. "This is Mrs. Muddle's shoebox," he said, lifting the lid and pulling out a freshly-pressed shirt. "Don't worry, I haven't opened any of the other boxes."
The box was marked for a boy 10-14 years old. In it were clothes, a Bible, and things boys around the world seem to enjoy. It also contained a hand-written note. "Do you mind if I open it?" asked Mr. Hanson. The family nodded its eager approval.
I sat near the back, listening as he read the last words Mrs. Muddle wrote. Words that left me and a few hundred others fighting back the tears.
The second part of this story will appear next month.
