An emotional wringer of a week

This week was tough and emotionally wearing. Yesterday our L'Arche community said goodbye to our dear friend, Anthony*, and on our way home from that funeral, we learned that another dear friend had just died. It would be too much to handle if we weren't Easter People who believe in the resurrection.

Today we held a first farewell gathering for our second friend, Tim. Plenty of tears and laughter, and lots of funny stories, one of which I had completely forgotten from back in November of 2010. I'm remoodling it below, because it's such a good one.

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It didn’t take long for the members of Little Flower house to get tired of doing dishes by hand when the old dishwasher broke down on the weekend. Tim, honourary home maintenance guy and core member, drew a picture of a new dishwasher, showed it to everyone in the house, and they all signed their names to what became a rather effective make-shift petition.

Tim brought his petition to the General Body Meeting on Monday night, and showed it to the entire L’Arche Edmonton community, finally giving it to the community leader, Sister Pat. She showed it to the Board Chairperson, Wendy, who surprised everyone (including herself, we suspect) by announcing that she would take the petition to a few appliance stores the next afternoon, and see if perhaps she could convince one of them to donate a brand new dishwasher.

On Tuesday morning, Wendy told her curling team the story of Little Flower’s dishwasher petition, and showed it to her friends at the rink, explaining her intended errand that afternoon. She was surprised again when one of her teammates wrote her a cheque for a new dishwasher, asking only that a charity receipt be issued to her husband’s business. 

Tim’s efforts got results faster than any other known petition!

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God bless you, Tim. We miss you already.

*I usually use pseudonyms for my L'Arche friends. Tim is an exception to the rule.