Two patients from Virginia

Two patients limp into two different American medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.

The first patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The second sees the family doctor after waiting a week for an appointment, then waits 18 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another month and finally has his surgery scheduled for six months from then.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The first is a Golden Retriever. The second is a senior citizen.

submitted by Marlowe Hammerston,
St. Paul

Rain and sunshine

We live in farm country; the much-needed rain has been discussed. Now, we have the welcomed rain; it is soaking the earth and crops will be planted. Once again we'll witness a wonderful miracle as flowers, vegetables and crops flourish. Although we don't seek rain, it is rain mixed with sunshine that produces growth in our lives and increases our hope and faith.

Doris E. Carlson, Wadena

Old age

You lose your faculties
You get left behind
You're out of sight
out of mind

Agnes Hayden, Minneapolis

Threads

Examine life's tapestry,
Find yourself there.
See how the threads of your life
Are woven together
With those of others.

Threads of love and work
And tears and laughter
Stretch back across the years
To ancestors unknown.
Friends unmet.

Threads newly woven.
Tie your cares and hopes
To familiar faces
And those yet forming
Whose threads must still be spun.

Joy and sorrow.
Delight and sadness
Are entwined in the fabric
Of our lives

If we could remove
A thread of sorrow.
Would we not risk unraveling
Our joy also?

Could we pull out a thread
Of pain, without removing
The love and compassion
That are knotted to it?

So....
Let the wheel spin,
The shuttle fly:
The cloth is whole
And we are one.

Author Unknown, submitted by
Betty Beier and Pat Wuest, Minneapolis

Ode to Bill

A couple becomes one through the years,
One heart, one mind soon appears.
Love grows and grows like a rose,
Life so sweetly fragrant to our nose.

Suddenly, too soon, one life is shed,
To enter God's Kingdom and for what's ahead.
When God received a loved one into His arms,
He soon sends Angels to ward off our harms.

When Angels appear, friends, family and Christ,
Love and Hope will soon exist.
Loved ones are safe now and so it must be,
For now and all eternity.

You are never alone, nor ever you should be,
I know for a fact, it has all happened to me.
The rhyme may not be so very great,
I do know this though, your new life awaits.

My prayer this day is for you and to all,
That Love, Peace, Faith and Comfort will soon befall.

Glenda Ballis, Apple Valley