We washed an extra plate because Daniel came and ate.

Busy.

We always get so busy. “Stuff” always takes up so much of our time that significant opportunities unfortunately get missed weekly, daily, hourly. Today was not going to be one of those days. We had a lot of cleaning up to do today. Eric came over and helped me break down cardboard boxes that we had hung onto after moving. Then it was sweeping and mopping time. After that came the dishwasher…the list went on. Amanda came home from work exhausted, and started cooking right away. We had a big dinner on the go.

There were seven people coming over tonight. Daniel, though he didnt know it, was definitely the guest of honor. I love college students. They are poor and they are extremely grateful for minor things like a good home cooked meal..its so easy to keep them happy. What were our ‘regulars’ going to do when they met Daniel..how were we going to make sure he felt welcome and important to us? It can be hard when one guest is a 3 generation gap older than everyone else.

Daniel showed up with a bucket of ’strawberries and cream’ icecream.

He was a little bit nervous, and a lotta bit excited. Everyone was really friendly, they introduced themselves just like mom had taught them to do. He was cold so he asked if he could keep his coat on. He apologized when he shook our hands, he said it was hard to keep his hands warm. Next time i’ll turn up the heat a bit more ahead of time, this time I just cranked up the fireplace. The regulars asked good questions to get him talking, he relaxed and laughed a few times. He told us that he was feeling old telling stories about things that happened to him in his life before any of us were even born. Then he laughed again.

He had perfect manners. He sat there and waited until the hostess had been served and had started eating before he took a bite. His eyes were huge as he eyed dinner excitedly. Then he dug in. He explained to the regulars how happy he was that he was eating food like this, with company like this. He told the same stories a couple times, it was awesome. The regulars listened eagerly whenever he repeated himself. We decided to go around the room and tell a bit about ourselves. I told Jeff that if he talked too long, i would gong him by hitting my spoon on my glass. Everyone took a turn and Daniel listened carefully. He was learning about his new friends. I noticed that he remembered names throughout the evening. Impressive. When we got to Amanda she said that I should talk about her as if i was amanda, and she would tell about me as if she was Jo-Ben. I said about three words and then Jeff gonged me with his spoon, it was pretty funny. We had some good laughs as I pretended I was amanda and mentioned several times about how lucky “i” was to meet the perfect man of my dreams.

When it came time for dessert he got really excited again. I had to tell him not to wait for Amanda to start eating because his icecream was starting to melt. Amanda made a delicious banana dessert. Daniel told her so several times. I accidentally made an extra plate of dessert…Daniel laughed pretty hard when Eric asked me why I had two plates in front of me. I hadn’t noticed. I told him that one was for the spoon in my left hand. Then i picked up amanda’s spoon and said that the other was for the spoon in my right hand. Daniel grinned from ear to ear.

After dinner we played Farkle. Its a great dice game based almost entirely on Luck. We played for about an hour, I was a very ungracious host and accidentally won. We had a lot of laughs….a lot of laughs. Daniel told us about his kids and grandkids. He talked a little bit about battling cancer, and mentioned people by name who were kind to him when he was sick. He says sometimes he doesn’t feel well and has to miss out on things. He told us that he is a dreamer, and so what if he doesn’t always accomplish his dreams…at least he dreamed. He has a tandem bicycle sitting under his deck.. He put it there so that it would be protected from the elements until he got the chance to do some maintenance on it. Its been there, untouched, for five years now. Daniel had a good laugh. He told us that he had a Masters in Business and that he was an engineering consultant. He said that he had a pilots license and that he had won several awards in engineering. It made him happy that people wanted to hear about his accomplishments in life. He told us about mistakes he has made, and his relatively recent conversion to a Faith in Christ. He told us that strict churches were made for guys like him who needed structure…its funny hearing that from an older dude. He told us that we were still young with our whole lives ahead of us. He told us that we could do anything we wanted. He repeated that our whole lives were in front of us.

He said he had to get going. He had been smiling for most of the evening, his cheeks were probably sore. We all walked him to the door. He put his shoes on and stood there facing all of us. He thanked us for walking up to him and inviting him in the hospital. I told him that he hadn’t had a bbq on our deck yet so he was going to have to come back if he was willing to spend another evening with us. He said he had so much fun. He said goodbye to amanda and asked her to please invite him again. He was such a cute old dude. He waved goodbye and said again to please have him back, he had so much fun with us.

Daniel blessed us tonight and I almost didn’t bother to mow the lawn, again. I wonder how big of a blessing I passed up the last time I disobeyed and didn’t answer the call to mow the lawn. Not this time, this time we washed an extra plate because Daniel came and ate.

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