Even after all these years, I can still see the three of them going out to eat together.
Paul's mom was holding a baby close to her heart with one arm and had little Paul's hand tucked in her other hand...or was she holding hands with Paul, Sr. and Paul was the babe-in-arms?
Who can tell?
All I knew was that this elderly widow was living her life as a young mother once more, thanks to Alzheimer's.
Or, was she living as a little girl, and Paul represented her dad and the doll she was holding was just that: a doll?
At one time, Paul was dealing with two parents with Alzheimer's, and he took them both out to eat on many occasions.
He had been asked by those who didn't understand: "Why do you do this? By the next day, they don't remember anything about it?"
Paul said that this really didn't matter, because they had such a wonderful time while the various outings were taking place.
In their younger days, Paul's parents had been missionaries before making Anderson their hometown and starting a bicycle shop there. Their business also made keys and sold arts and crafts material.
After the illnesses and, eventual, deaths of his parents, Paul tried to keep their business going.
Paul had never married and had continued to live in the cozy house where he had grown up while continuing to operate the business first as partners with his parents and, eventually, on his own.
Sadly, the bigger stores provided too much competition for Paul so that, one year, he only sold one bike. Still he kept things going.
Eventually, he would phase out of arts, crafts, and bikes and keep the key business--the only area in which he was making a profit--going.
By this time, he had a way to keep something going in the building that held so many memories for him: a place where meetings and banquets could be held and catering could be done.
This was thanks to our precious minister, Jerry Alexander, who has this wonderful gift for seeing a need and finding a way to meet it.
I was thrilled to find out today that his website was up-and-running, so I've been doing reviews all day that point to his website.
I'm going to finish this with a link that will tell you more about Paul and me and will contain a link to his website.
You'll soon know why I say that this turn-of-events in Paul's life that have allowed him to keep the building with all of its memories while giving Anderson a wonderful catering service and a place to hold meetings, banquets, wedding receptions, etc. couldn't have happened to a nicer man!!!
http://fglblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/im-getting-hungry-from-just-writing.html
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