The other morning when going to prepare a bowl of oatmeal I
noticed there was only one “A.C. Elliot Bowl” in the pantry instead of
two. There had been six to start with;
but as the years have gone by their numbers have dwindled.
You might ask, “How is it the bowls have a proper name?”, a
reasonable question…
When I was a police officer working in downtown Houston my partner and I
would occasionally have lunch at a small Chinese restaurant near the Eastex
Freeway elevated. I asked the owner
where I could purchase bowls similar to the kind they had and was told to go
down the street to a place called A.C. Elliot.
There was no place called A.C. Elliot, nothing close as I
asked her to step outside and point to the store. She shook her head in such a way as to say,
“Stupid cop can’t see the nose on his face”, as she pointed two blocks down to
a wholesale house with a big sign out front, Asiatic Imports. How could I have been so dense…
I’ve grown accustomed to placing two packets of instant
oatmeal in my A.C. Elliot Bowl each morning followed by just the right amount
of boiling water and a lump of butter.
What has this got to do with the price of eggs? (Pardon the colloquial expression)
My mother died this past Monday and there are so many
thoughts and emotions running through my head as to make it spin. When I noticed an A.C. Elliot Bowl was missing
an odd thought came to mind; that of a desperately sick young woman looking out
her window to see if there were any leaves left on the vine. She had imagined that her life would end the
day The Last Leaf fell off.
A winter storm was blowing hard and most of the leaves on
the vine blew off as evening drew near.
There wasn’t much hope any of them would last until morning as the
young woman went off to bed, the look of death creeping onto her cheeks.
Much to everyone's surprise, upon opening the curtain one lone leaf had somehow managed to survive the storm as it bravely held onto the wall; but upon closer inspection the vine was no longer attached to the leaf.
A clumsy old alcoholic was found dead in the alley the next
morning half buried in a pile of fresh snow.
He’d spent the night on a ladder in the cold and damp as he painted his
masterpiece on the wall directly across from the young woman’s window, a
perfect replication of the last leaf on the vine. He’d created the miracle of hope for another
individual with his last efforts.
Isn’t that an odd thought to come up with while making a
bowl of oatmeal?
I’ll figure out how to manage the mix of thoughts and
emotions that have landed upon my consciousness; it might take some time. While driving to a job I won’t be able to
call her on the phone as we pass the miles talking about the weather, the
Astros, cats or what ever; that’s something I’ve come to enjoy these many
years.
We are creatures of habit.
Right now there’s an emptiness where something familiar is missing. I’m so glad there’s at least one A.C. Elliot
Bowl left in the cabinet.
This article has been cross posted to
The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The
Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.
