By Small Means

I stopped by Eva's Bakery Boulangerie today, a lovely European bakery on South Main Street in Salt Lake, and bought an almond croissant. It was crispy and moist -- almonds mixed with confectioner's sugar and sweet dough -- a triumph of a croissant. Here's a picture of the bakery racks inside the shop...

I gave some of the croissant to Vicky tonight. She took a bite, considered, then handed it back to me.

"Really?" I said. "You don't like it?"

"It's not that I don't like it," she said. "I just can't taste it. The texture is nice, but subtle tastes are completely lost on me these days."

It made me sad. We've had a long tradition of treating each other to interesting tastes, and now a curtain has been drawn over her tongue. Something to look forward to when this is all over, I guess.

~~~

Every month, Vicky puts up a new message on the blackboard she made (Wood plywood, painted with special blackboard paint, frame moulding around the edges, hung on the wall opposite the fridge). Today I got home to see this new message:

I asked her why she chose that particular message. She said, "You know, step-by-step wins the race."

I think she put it up as a reminder to herself more than anything. Her fatigue is ever-present, though a bit better than yesterday. I was very proud of her reply when I asked her if she thought she would be up to going to the Saturday night session of Stake Conference. She said: "Maybe. But I may not be in shape to go. And you know -- I'm OK with that."

This from a woman with a bat in her hand and an eye for the far fence, who lives the phrase: "Make no small plans, for they have no power to stir men's blood."

But this is the reality she's in right now; she needs to give herself permission to be incremental. And she did pretty well today. She put the glass shelves in the clock and got the lights working...

She put up a new rug by the front door (you can even see the tag)...

She puts some shelves by the window...

did the dishes...

and went to get root beer floats with her honey.

Small things that add up to a pretty good day.

For me, though, the saying has another meaning: Vicky is short. Nobody disputes that. Her children and her husband point the fact out to her sometimes just to earn a backhand slap. I love standing near her and gazing over the top of her head - her hair is a field of harvest wheat, waving softly in the breeze, sweet and golden. 

Small woman, but look what she has wrought. Four children, talented in music, child-rearing, computers, running, nutrition, missionary work, entrepreneurship and spirituality, with wonderful social graces and a balanced, cosmopolitan view of the world. A beautiful, accomplished daughter-in-law, a smart, hard-working son-in-law, three and a half grandchildren. 

By small means are great things accomplished. Who'd have thought that this small, unassuming woman would bring forth so much good into this world?