Are you OK?
Week one of our LBC posting for the brand spanking New Year of 2011. Conrad turned the drum and pulled out a topic for today, it was suggested by me.
Listening
“Are you OK?” He asked.
It had been years since I heard a man say those words and when I heard them again about a month or six weeks ago, the question took me by surprise.
What did he mean?
Was I feeling unwell, was I hungry, thirsty or tired? He hardly thought I was pregnant…. Goodness gracious that would not alone be a shock, but a greater miracle than a moving statue!
I assured the gentleman that I was feeling fine.
“But are you OK?” He repeated and quickly followed up with “Do you need anything?”
Now we girls are always in need of something….
In my young days it would be an endless supply of tights, I was forever catching them on a chair or with a rough finger nail. There was of course new makeup or SHOES. How I loved buying new shoes. Imelda was my middle name! 
Well, I was on the wrong track. It turns out Mr OK was worried about me. He had been listening to all the doom and gloom in this part of the world: the bank vaults being empty and the Governments taking taxes from us many times over to fill the vast abyss once more. If that was not enough we would pay extra tax on everything we used… I wonder how much tax we have to pay for breathing?
Back to Mr OK. He was offering to rescue me financially if the need arose. I was stunned.. How kind that anyone would think along such lines about me.
I am not very good at accepting gifts. Listening to the chat of an old friend today brought back a distant memory of such a story that she never forgot…. it happened around this time of the year, before I was married, so maybe that was why she remembered it.
Both our late husbands worked together and there was to be a Dinner dance (all the rage back then) for the Company, in Scotland. Jack was alone at the time, and the girls in his office were encouraging him to go with them to the dance. He only knew me a very short time but told me he did not want to go alone and asked if I would go with him. I agreed. It would be the first time I met his work colleagues and they me. My name was added to the list and a room booked for me. Everything went well and we had great fun.
On the morning after the dance we had time to wander at our leisure, before climbing aboard our coach for our return to the ferry and the journey to Northern Ireland. We headed out in couples to explore our surroundings. Soon I found we were in the main shopping area. We wandered slowly and I was happy to window shop. No matter what I looked at or admired, Jack wanted to buy it for me. My friend and her husband emerged from a shop as we were at the window and I was saying “No thank you” for the umpteenth time. We stood to chat for a few minutes and I explained to her about my predicament.
Her words were “Let him buy everything for you!” She would have taken everything, but not me. I saw all guys as my brothers, and would not use them for free booty! Time enough when we had made a strong commitment to each other. Indeed after we married, Jack was very generous with gifts. If he was out and about and saw something that he thought I would like he would arrive home with it. There was hardly a day passed that I did not receive a gift. I regularly found a bar of dark chocolate in my knickers’ drawer.
Then there were the raspberries…………..
When I was pregnant I had a longing for raspberries, but of course they were out of season. One day while Jack was working in the Limavady area, he was in a shop and saw tinned raspberries on the shelf…
You guessed it… he bought out their whole stock!
rummuser said,
January 7, 2011 at 2:41 pm
A man after my own heart, your Jack. Grannymar, there are people out there in the world who offer help without any strings attached. In my present predicament, the number of offers that I have received for financial assistance is mind boggling. Totally unexpected sources have offered. These people listen and act with their hearts. You are fortunate to have Mr. OK in your life. Keep listening to old stories.
“…..the opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives. But also the potentialities alone are so affected. For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble field of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.
From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past - the potentialities that they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized - and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”
- Viktor Frankl
wisewebwoman said,
January 7, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Lovely story, GM. Synchronicity - I too was offered help of that nature if I ever needed it this past week. I was so stunned, I was moved to tears.
There are wonderful people in this universe and I am so glad they are my friends.
XO
WWW
Gaelikaa said,
January 7, 2011 at 4:36 pm
He was quite a gem, your man.
nick said,
January 7, 2011 at 5:17 pm
You must have felt extremely pampered getting such a constant stream of gifts! I love his habit of putting dark chocolate in your knicker drawer. And buying the whole stock of tinned raspberries was an inspired gesture!
Grannymar said,
January 7, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Ramana - I have given me plenty to chew on there.
WWW - I had to pinch myself to make sure that gift of an offer was not just a dream. We are fortunate indeed.
Gaelikaa - That he was and I told him so every day!
Grannymar said,
January 7, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Nick - I was extremely pampered. I turned down a mink coat and steered Jack away from buying other very expensive gifts, I was always more interested in the unexpected little surprises like the chocolate.
blackwatertown said,
January 8, 2011 at 1:39 am
Lovely story.
I like the way your mind works.
Grannymar said,
January 8, 2011 at 10:56 am
BTW - I wish I knew how my mind worked!
Baino said,
January 9, 2011 at 6:46 pm
People do surprise you sometimes don’t they? Ha, none of my friends are in a position to offer financial help and one is too busy skiing in Switzerland. Jack sounded pretty wonderful.
Marianna said,
January 13, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Grannymar,
Those raspberries fed more than your belly; the memory of your Jack and his generous nature provides you with a gift, one that changes your physiology, for the good!
A lovely quote posted by Ramana, too!
As for the generosity I’m reading about here, well, it’s simply uplifting.
Grannymar said,
January 15, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Baino - Everyday seems to hold a surprise for me. Life is good.
Marianna - You are quite right, every time I see raspberries I think of Jack and his gesture of thought and affection.