Altar Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter Albritton
August 8, 2010
I
admire people who refuse to give up when life is difficult
Over
the years I have known a few people who would not give up. No matter how
difficult life became, these tenacious people refused to quit. And these have
been the people who inspired me the most. They are my heroes. I am indebted to
each one, and it is a debt I can only repay by imitating their toughness when
the going gets rough.
I
remember Joe Hamilton, a homebound member in my first parish. On my first visit
Joe greeted me in his wheelchair. Diabetes had robbed him of a leg but he did
not whine about it. Instead he was cheerful and talked about former days when
he could walk and run.
Joe
called me a few months later. He informed
me that the doctor planned to cut off his other leg in a few days. “I will be
all right,” he said; “I still have both arms.” And he was all right. He asked
for no sympathy, and he refused to feel sorry for himself.
I
never liked visiting Joe. He had a Chihuahua that did not like me. On every
visit with Joe that little dog barked from the time I arrived until I drove
off. I wanted to step on him, the dog that is, and send him on to heaven, but
Joe loved the little devil. I put up with the dog because I loved Joe.
That
dog was Joe’s constant companion. Small and ugly though he was, that dog meant
the world to Joe. The dog did not know it but he owed his life to me; I let him
live because my friend Joe needed him. I think Joe drew strength from his dog.
I don’t know for sure. I do know that I
drew strength from Joe’s courage.
I
remember Miss Johnnie Johnston. She was 88 when I met her. I admired her oil
paintings and she gave me one. It was an altar scene, an open Bible on a
pulpit, with two pots of flowers around it. “I painted that one when I was 85.
I had to paint it with my left hand because my right hand had been paralyzed by
a stroke.”
Miss
Johnnie never complained. She stayed busy painting, cooking, and
doing things for other people. She had no time to feel sorry for herself.
People needed her so like her Lord she “went about doing good.”
She inspired me.
I
remember Maud. She was a widow who lived alone but she was not a bitter
recluse. If she was ever depressed, she
kept it to herself. Whenever Maud was around, people were smiling and laughing.
She was a carrier of good cheer.
A cake baker with few equals, Maud
often showed up at our door with my favorite – a chocolate cake. Her apparent
joy in giving a cake away almost equaled my joy in receiving one. Many women
crochet; Maud baked cakes. Her cheerful countenance was an inspiration.
John came down with cancer. He had
to retire early. Cancer and the treatment for it robbed him of energy, denying
him many of the privileges he once enjoyed. But he chose to be better, not bitter. People
close to him said he never complained right up to the time of his final
illness.
He saw death coming down the road
looking for him. He refused to give up and go quietly. As long as he had
breath, he lived every day to the fullest. John looked death in the face and
said, “You cannot take my life because I have already given it to God. My
future is in his hands, not yours.”
When it comes my time to slip away,
to make my journey through that thin curtain that separates this life from the
next, I want to walk on with my head up. I want to do it as a final tribute to
the men and women who have inspired me the most – the ones who kept smiling
through hard times and refused to give up. +