M.O.W.

It’s drizzling this morning and the outlook is sketchy but off I head to “work”.  It’s going to be another wonderful day.  You just wait and see.

Retired for nearly fifteen years, but still, every Monday its off to work.  The money is good because it is nothing at all.  They doubled my salary last year but it still amounts to nothing.  I’m a volunteer.  I drive a truck.  Just a small truck but it carries a big load.  The biggest load there is.  We deliver food to the needy, the sick, the lame, the bed ridden.  The elderly, the infirm, some one, anyone in need.

We are the Meals On Wheels.

First load the truck.  Cold and fresh foods near the front in the cold half of the truck.  Then, at the last minute we load the back half with the hot meals.  All sealed and fresh from the pot, oven, or maybe the fryer.

I’m always the driver because I like to drive more than they do, whoever “they” are.  Today it’s Bob, 84, and still able as me to get in and out of the truck time after time delivering food.

First stop an older lady with several dogs that she breeds right in her house.  Unkempt she is but she meets us at the door most times and says “thank you” every time.  A good feeling for us to start our route.  Next it’s a few miles out of town just past the church.  No, not the Methodist Church, the Catholic Church, St. Luke’s, but not as far at the Lutheran Church.  They all deliver spiritual food but we deliver the edible kind.

Two meals here.  We let ourselves in and announce “Meals on Wheels”, no answer but the table is all set.  Placemats out, knives, forks, spoons placed like Emily Post would require.  We put a hot meal in the middle and the cold fruit cup on each place mat.  Quietly we go back into the Truck.  I hope they like what we delivered.

A few miles we go off the beaten path.  Gravel road, steep driveway, but a friendly face greets us.  A man in his fifties quite able to fend for himself.  But the meal is for his invalid wife who suffers greatly.  He senses what is inside and says, ” she will really like the chicken pot pie.  And off we go.  Almost off the edge of the road as we back down the steep driveway.

Next it’s  a retired man from the Air Force, in his eighties.  Skinny, frail looking, we see him in his bed as our knock just woke him up.  I kid him a little for sleeping past 10:00 AM but he expects that from me, by now.  The aroma of the hot meal makes him hungry already, I can tell.

The next old timer has a wonderful looking home site.  Mowed yard of several acres.  We were warned that he might be a tough customer, as his doctor “prescribed” Meals on Wheels for him.  Now that’s a new one on me, and everyone else too.  He quit eating after his wife of 66 years just died.  Adjustment was not what he wanted to hear about.  Bob and I talked to him for awhile.  We parted with his agreement to just try the food.  Food was delivered all week by other volunteers and I got my chance to meet him again this Monday.  We pulled into the driveway, the big garage door began to open like it was on cue.  There he was standing there with a smile on his face.  He tells us, “best thing I ever did” since she passed away.  “I feel better now.  I get things done again.”  I think, yes, food does that to a man.  See you next week.

Each place we stop there is another human being needing food, wanting food, and getting food from us.  I feel good about that.  Bob doesn’t talk much but he smiled after that last stop.  He feels good about delivering food too.  In another sort of way delivering food to others is spiritual, uplifting, nourishing food for us too.

Twenty or so stops later we arrive back at the Senior Center food kitchen and unload the trucks.  The aroma of the drizzling morning has evaporated to a warm sense of having done a good deed.

Perhaps I need to delver food or help in other ways to keep the food of a good retired life intact.  I sometimes think my calling card should read, “Need Food, Will Travel”.