A young boy was having problems at his school. His classes were difficult, and his fellow students were bullying him. His mother was having trouble getting him to go to school, and recently he refused to go outright under threat of punishment. His mother wisely sent him to his Grandmother’s farm for the weekend to see if her years could help with this issue.
The young boy ranted about his side of the story to his Grandmother as soon as he walked through her door. She sat at the kitchen table and smiled, as Grandmothers do. When he started losing some steam with his complaints, she pushed her chair back and said, “I would love to hear more about this, but first, I need you to do me a favor. Please take this basket.” She went over to the fireplace and picked up the old dirty basket, took a couple pieces of firewood out and handed it to him and said, “Go to the creek and bring me some fresh water. Once you do that, we can go do something special, and I want to hear all about your troubles.”
Frustrated, he took the basket and ran to the creek. He filled the basket with creek water and ran back to the kitchen. By the time he got there, the water had drained through the holes in the wicker.
“Where is the water?”, his Grandmother asked.
The young boy shrugged, as young boys do, without an answer.
“You may need to run faster,” she smiled.
He ran as fast as he could back and forth another two times with the same result. He presented his Grandmother with an empty basket.
“Maybe you can hold the water in with your hands,” she laughed, “Then run as fast as you can.”
The boy tried this one more time. He stomped his foot! “Grandma, this is impossible!”
She smiled at him, as Grandmothers do, and pointed toward the basket. The dingy basket was clean and looked brand new. The multiple trips to the creek had washed it clean. She sat him at the kitchen counter and held the basket in front of her.
“Look at this and how clean it is. If the basket didn’t participate in our little experiment, it would still be by the fireplace, dirty, grey, and full of firewood. But since it did, it now is ready for a greater purpose. If you stay home and do not live your live, you are like the basket by the fireplace…not very bright and only good for one thing. When you engage and participate in your life, your life experiences flow through you, like the creek water through the basket, you become brighter and that is a good thing. In that brightness you become prepared for many amazing things.”
She open the cupboard, and pulled some homemade jam and placed it in the basket. “You become sweeter.”
She grabbed a couple of apples, just picked from her orchard. “You find yourself more fruitful.”
Last she went to the oven and pulled a freshly baked loaf of bread, and put that in the basket. “You become warm and full of compassion.”
She covered it with a clean towel to keep the bread warm.
“You shouldn’t lose faith in yourself. When you do lose faith, you lose the chance for the possible to happen. Go to school. Do the hard stuff. Have faith in yourself that it will get better because you are better down the road. Speaking of ‘down the road,’ I have a friend that is sick and we need to take this basket to her. What you say we go do something amazing?”
The young boy jumped from the counter and grabbed the basket, and said, “Let me carry it Grandma. I want to live my life.”
“I thought you might,” she smiled, as Grandmothers do.
Like in this story, challenges with hearing loss can be frustrating. Having hearing loss myself, I have lost faith. But I found that it is no way to live. Hearing aid settings created problems in hearing. Hearing aids failed and had to be sent in, but not until after trying multiple fixes. You just want to bring them back, or if you can’t, you shove them in a drawer.
Our offices: Family Hearing & Balance Center, and Cardinal Hearing Centers work very hard to protect our patient’s faith in us. The results are never “good enough.”
“Nothing can be done,” that is not a solution. When faith is protected by the Practice, and when patients are encouraged to maintain their faith, then…then the possible can happen.
Very motivational…. thank you!
Very sweet picture this story paints and very true too. Thanks for sharing!
very encouraging.
Loved this!!!
Very uplifting blog Dale. Thank you.
Such a great story about the boy, the dirty and clean basket, the grandma and motivation that she created in this little boy! Loved the correlation as we as Audiologists in our practice motivate others to have hope!
keep writing Dale!…:)