FUNCTIONAL FAMILY

The Motorcycle

Is one of the most beautiful inventions.

It is part of almost everyone’s heart. It brings so much joy, happiness and friendship,

Especially when you ride it with a sunny blue sky, green nature, and cut through the air as you cool down in the heat.

It is even more beautiful when you pull over to help Haitian refugees on the side of the road.

All of them wearing colourful outfits with huge baskets of goods to sell for their

Families

I was riding fast and I thought I saw something beautiful, I wasn’t sure if it was what I thought I saw. I pressed the breaks, stopped further down the road, turned around and went back. It was what I thought I saw and seeing it made me smile.

Something so simple but so deep. Something hard but so honest.

I saw a family so poor but so healthy.

I saw a young man with his lovely wife and very young daughter just on the side of the road.

They were sitting in the shade of an almond tree.

It was a hot summer day and the man had no shirt on but had put a piece of cloth beneath his daughter sleeping on the stones. He had a hammer in his hand and a big stone on the ground. The man was going through the almonds one by one, breaking the flesh to get to the shell and breaking the shell

To get to the almond

And his young lovely wife sat beside him patiently watching him work. She had a bag of unshelled almonds beside her.

I couldn’t speak Spanish and they couldn’t speak English so with sign language I asked ‘is this your only kid’ and he pointed with his finger to his wife’s stomach, she was pregnant. Four people right on the side of the road, waiting patiently under the almond tree for honest salvation.

He had a small yellow container filled with almonds he had shelled. He reached out his hand and offered me some almonds.

Although I was very curious and I love almonds, I didn’t have the heart to take some. I saw so much hard work for each almond, shelling them one by one. Out of consideration I took just one and I gave him a big donation. It put a big smile on his wife’s face and they both said many times ‘gracias, gracias, gracias’. It was so priceless to see, he didn’t even have a bicycle but the family stayed together to work together, so patiently and honestly. They passed the days together side by side, good days and bad. There are so many healthy lessons in poverty. There is so much love yet to learn from the poorest of the poor.

I got back on my bike with a big smile again and continued riding fast cutting through the air while it cooled me down.

I imagined the beautiful scene I just saw, For a man,

Making his daily bread, almond tree to almond tree to almond tree.

Then I said to myself,

‘Our father who art in heaven,

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us from trespassing as we forgive those who trespass against us,

lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil

and let us get our daily bread

under the almond trees, honestly, with our

Family

14 September 2009

08852