Year Round Pecans For Buster Over the years weve been married, my wife Cherry has always gone out of her way to take care of older folks especially those with some kind of ailment. She was at her best when dealing with those with dementia, Alzheimers and other mental conditions. Their ailments never seemed to bother her or make her uncomfortable, she would talk to them for hours and she had much more patience for them then anyone I have ever met. She cooked special treats for them, she comforted them and she was their trusted friend. Cherry met Buster at one of the local livestock auctions in either Hockley or Navasota long before he was stricken with Alzheimers. Buster was a well known citizen of Waller County, having owned several businesses including a real estate company. After Buster was stricken with Alzheimers, he and his wife moved into a house a half a block or so from our home in Hempstead. Buster had trouble remembering things, he very seldom had a clue who I was but he remembered my wife and always called her by name. Buster liked to wander and he would sometimes sneak out at night and walk around town, but he remembered where we lived so we always left the back door unlocked and the porch light on. He called it the house on the hill with the lights and he would step inside and get him a snack and a coke, which Cherry always had sitting in the refrigerator by the door. Sometimes he would come further in the house and say hi but most of the time he would just get his snack and go home. Two of the things Buster liked to do was pick black berries in the spring and gather pecans in the fall. Cherry baked a lot of sweets with pecans in them and she knew pretty near everyone in Waller County who owned a pecan tree and she knew the location of all the good producing trees. She would pick up hundreds of pounds of pecans every year and take them to DiIorios to have them cracked. We also had a good producing pecan tree in our front yard that she left for Buster. As soon as the pecans started dropping, he would come over everyday and gather the pecans from that tree. Allowing him to pick our pecans served two purposes, it kept Buster close to home and it made him happy. In the fall of the year before Buster was moved to a nursing home in Houston, Cherry hauled her pecans to DiIorios to have them cracked but she left a box of about fifty pounds of pecans home. I asked her why and she said that they were for Buster. I tried to explain to her that Buster didnt really need any pecans, he didnt do anything with them, he just enjoyed picking them up under the tree. She simply stated that Buster needs these pecans and I let it go at that. As fall turned to winter, there were fewer and fewer pecans under the tree for Buster to pick up but he continued coming each day. I went out one day while he was picking and noticed quite a few large pecans on the ground under the tree and that got my attention. I asked Cherry about this and she simply said that Buster needs to pick up pecans and Im making sure he can do that. She had been going out early every morning and scattering some of the pecans from the un-cracked box out under the tree and she continued doing this every day until early spring when the box of pecans was finally empty. Just a small act of kindness for a dying man but what an impact that made on me. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:10:55 +0000
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