Please Download
The Old Fisherman
Anonymous
5-6 minutes
Our house was across the street from the entrance of a famous hospital in the city. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic. As I was fixing supper one summer evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful-looking man.
“He’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face–lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you have a room for just one night. I came for treatment from the eastern shore this morning, and there’s no bus ’till the morning.”
He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon, but he had no success as no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments….”
For a moment, I hesitated, but his following words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” So I told him we would find him a bed but to rest on the porch.
I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No, thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him for a few minutes.
It didn’t take long to see that this older man had a big heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded, and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.”
He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again.
On his next trip, he arrived a little after seven in the morning. He brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen as a gift. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m., and I wondered what time he had to get up to do this for us.
In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.
Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these and knowing how little money he had made the gifts more precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful-looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!”
Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family will always be grateful to have known him; from him, we learned to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude.
Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend changed my mind.
“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. So it’s just for a little while till I can put it out in the garden.”
She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I imagined just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s a wonderful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.”
-Author Unknown
Old Fisherman
Inspirational stories, true or not; things that make you smile, cry, give you a lift and also love. They may not be all Catholic but do God's work. Downloadable and printable.
Return to “Inspirational Stories (PDF, Word) (Downloadable, Printable)”
Jump to
- The Parish Office
- ↳ A Worldwide Community
- ↳ Introductions
- ↳ Prayer Needs
- ↳ FREE MIRACULOUS MEDAL
- One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church
- ↳ A Voice In The Wilderness
- ↳ ☕︎ Around The Coffee Table Chat Room
- ↳ Blessed Virgin Mary
- ↳ Our Lady Of Akita
- ↳ Our Lady Of Betania
- ↳ Our Lady Of Fatima
- ↳ Our Lady Of Garabandal
- ↳ Our Lady Of Guadalupe
- ↳ Our Lady Of Knock
- ↳ Our Lady Of La Salette
- ↳ Our Lady Of Lourdes
- ↳ Our Lady Of Medjugorje
- ↳ Our Lady Of The Miraculous Medal
- ↳ Our Lady Of Mount Carmel
- ↳ Mother's Precious Beads - The Rosary of The Blessed Virgin Mary
- ↳ Stories About The Rosary
- ↳ Making Different Versions of Rosaries
- ↳ ♻️ Repairing and Recycling Rosaries, Rosary Making Supplies
- ↳ Challenges and Problems Associated With Shipment of Rosaries
- ↳ 🕊️Rosaries On The Wings Of A Dove
- ↳ Catholic Mystics, Seers, Visionaries, Miracles, Dreams, Visions, Revelations, Historical Catholicism, Martyrdom, Incorruptibles, Prophecy
- ↳ Three Days of Darkness
- ↳ The Smoke Of Satan
- ↳ 🎧 Catholic Podcasts
- ↳ Intriguing Catholic Videos
- Catholic Archives
- ↳ Catholic, We Are
- ↳ A-B-C-D
- ↳ E-F-G-H
- ↳ I-J-K-L
- ↳ M-N-O-P
- ↳ Q-R-S-T
- ↳ U-V-W-X-Y-Z
- ↳ Parish Web Pages
- ↳ Live Web-Cam Projections
- ↳ Catholic Churches Of The World
- ↳ Communion Of Saints
- ↳ A-B-C-D
- ↳ E-F-G-H
- ↳ I-J-K-L
- ↳ M-N-O-P
- ↳ Q-R-S-T
- ↳ U-V-W-X-Y-Z
- ↳ Catholic Books, Documents (PDF, Word) (Downloadable, Printable)
- ↳ Catholic Prayers, Novenas (PDF, Word) (Downloadable, Printable)
- ↳ Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- ↳ Blessed Virgin Mary
- ↳ Confession, Communion
- ↳ Daily Prayers, Morning, Evening, Our Catholic Identity
- ↳ God The Father
- ↳ God The Son Jesus
- ↳ God The Holy Spirit
- ↳ Litanies
- ↳ Morning Prayers
- ↳ Novenas
- ↳ Priests, Religious, Vocations
- ↳ Rosary, Chaplets
- ↳ Saints Prayers
- ↳ Souls In Purgatory
- ↳ Special Prayers
- ↳ Inspirational Stories (PDF, Word) (Downloadable, Printable)