being useful

Yesterday I helped to help a lady move.

The move was in the same retirement building, but on a different floor with a bit more space for her.

The engineer in charge had it all figured out: box the contents of a book case (there were lots of them), move the book case to it’s new place and then put the same books on the same shelves, in a different room.

Had he been working alone he could have pulled it off. But there were a lot of helpers, maybe a dozen or so and it got a bit scrambled.

The lady has a lot of books (literally thousands) and she is not ready to give up on them now. They are her friends, as she put it.

We all grumbled good naturedly as we worked, going up and down the elevator with boxes and boxes and hand carts and hand trucks full of stuff.

I suggested to one of the girls that she guess at how many people hours were involved in this project, multiply times $10 and see how spendy this move was. We laughed together!

Still, I am glad to help people who need help. Moving is arduous any day.

Some years ago a new pastor arrived in our town. He built a new house for himself and is family. The church group rallied around with untold hours of help on that house. I set the kitchen cabinets for him and put the counter tops on.

I don’t object or feel bad about what was done then, or what we did yesterday. And as long as I have strength, I’ll keep helping people when I can.

I am retired, I have time and a bit of strength left. Helping is the least I can do.