Search Results for: I Saw An Angel Last Night

Last night, as many of you know, I asked for help in purchasing a reclining lift chair for the elderly for Connie, a resident of the Mansion assisted care facility in Cambridge, N.Y.

The chair that bought cost $899 and will arrive in a week. I

t was purchased with the help of the Army of Good,  who sent me more than $1,000 for the chair in just minutes, and also another $1,000 to replenish my fund for the Mansion residents and the RISSE refugees. There is now about $1,700 in that fund.

Donations have slowed this morning, but are still coming.

Thank you.

The Medlift chair has enormous significance for me, beyond the fact that Connie is suffering greatly and needs it urgently. It will help her get up and walk and also be more comfortable.

The chair has an infrared heating system that, when turned out, will help heal the fractures in her back.

It will help in others ways as well, I am not free to discuss her health in more detail.

The experience last night goes for me to the heart of what it means to live in America and be an American. So many people – myself included – are worried about the soul of America. But I saw the soul of America last night, as I have seen it repeatedly over the past year.

Watching the news, it is easy enough to feel  grim about the country, but from where I sit, my faith if America has never been stronger.

After last November’s election, I saw the anger and division and arguments sweeping the country and decided not to be a part of them. I didn’t wish to spent a significant portion of the rest of my life arguing with people, on and off of social media, or obsessing on the country and it’s deepening conflicts, or getting depressed.

So I chose to do good and righteous things, at long last, and speak to the better angels in myself and others. Connie was one of the first people I met in that journey, I met her at the Mansion assisted care facility, she seemed feisty and lonely to me, and searching for some meaning.

She loved Red dearly, and has a wicked sense of humor, and a sharp and  true tongue. She misses nothing and speaks her mind.

She loves to knit, she said, but had no yarn or other equipment, and so I asked the readers of my blog if they could help. And help they did. Connie’s room quickly filled up with  yarn and needles and patterns and she went to work with industry and vigor, making caps and scarves for the Mansion staff, who love her, and for children in area hospitals.

Her room filled up with so much yarn the staff had to put it in big plastic tubs and store some in the Mansion basement. Her room was hot in the summer, and we got her an air conditioner, which helped with her energy and breathing – she has several chronic diseases and needs oxygen tubes to breathe properly.

This work transformed her, she loved doing it and helping others, and she became healthier and dramatically happier. We all need purpose in our lives, and Connie got hers back. The staffs said they had never seen her happier.

A few months ago, Connie, who is in her 80’s, experienced several health problems and was hospitalized several times,. She was in a nursing home for a time, and fought to get back to the Mansion, which she loves. And she has been struggling to get up and walk and move frequently, as the doctors have urged.

When we got back from the Mansion, I went to see  her with Maria and Red and saw that her struggle had intensified, and I could see she was in great pain, not able for now to read her beloved mysteries or knit her caps and sweaters – she and Maria have several projects planned.

If she is not mobile, she can’t remain in the Mansion, those are the federal rules. They simply can’t provide that level of care. so she is working hard to walk as much as possible. A painful and wearying challenge for her.

Her old chair, which she bought second-hand, was falling apart and no longer gave her the orthopedic support she  urgently needs. She told me she was going to liquidate some money – she has little or no money – and buy a new chair, when Connie says something like that, you know it is urgent.

The new chair will do many things for her, including helping her stand up quickly and comfortable, the start of her walking.

I told her to wait and asked for help before buying the chair. Connie has never asked me for help, I have to simply get what I think she needs and wants. I’ve gotten good at it, to her surprise and amusement.

The Army Of Good must have been sitting at their computers when I asked for help,  because the donations started flying and didn’t slow down until I announced I had bought the chair at 9 p.m. Even then, they kept coming, and at a slower rate, are coming still.

This is my America, this is the true soul of the country I know and love. It is alive and well and paying attention.

People heard the call and came running, no questions, no conditions, no demands, none of the occasional social media strangeness. I will have the Mansion fund up to $2,500 by the end of the day and Connie will have her chair about a week from now.

Connie has some steep hills to climb. She is clear-eyed and brave and honest, she will take comfort from and make good use of that chair, and we all can feel something good from helping to make this happen.

So this chair is important to me and others who sometimes lost heart or faith in the idea of America.  It is a symbol and a metaphor. We are a generous and tolerant and loving people, I can sometimes hear all those big hearts beating and thumping out there. Connie is not a rich or powerful person, she has few advocates but us and the wonderful people who take care of her.

This is what the Americans I know have always done, and always prided themselves in doing, it is who we really are, as Connie and so many others have learned this year, a wonderful year in so many ways.

Nobody needs to help Connie, she has no rich or powerful friends, and she will never be on cable news or any news or the President’s Twitter account (just think of the people he could help with that account, it makes me shiver). All you had to do is ignore the call, and so many responded to it

So the chair is important and every time I look at it, it will give me hope and burnish my faith and strong belief in tomorrow. I will keep at this and I hope you will stay with me, we are committing small acts of great kindness every day and proving again that doing good is a powerful and rational response to hate and discord.

Love is more powerful than hate, it will always prevail in time.

I hope this feels as good for you as it does for me, it makes me feel so grateful to be alive and a writer and picture-taker.

Much love to you, and thanks again.

If anyone wishes to donate to the Mansion Fund, which is used to help Mansion residents and refugees and immigrants,  you can do so by sending a check to Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or  contribute via Paypal, [email protected]. If you wish your donation to go to the Mansion residents or refugees, please note that. If you wish to support my work or my blog, you can donate here, as some people did so generously  yesterday.

Every penny will be spent wisely and well.

When I saw Bill today, the first thing he said to me was that I had to see the rainbow scarf he had just received in the mail.

Bill was happier than I’ve ever seen him today. He was eager to show me a Gay Pride scarf Donna send him from Kentucky: “Bill, a lot of people are wishing you well and are willing to help, Just ask!” I read him the message and he loved the scarf, he can’t wait for winter.

Bill can’t ask for help right now, he is working to be able to read, write and focus. He regrets that he can’t answer the messages he is  getting, I keep telling him his smile is thanks enough. This week he has gotten letters, cakes, cupcakes, some postcards that made him very happy, it was powerful to see the effect this emerging sense of community is having on him.

He is not, in fact, as alone as he thought he was, as isolated as he feared he was. Our challenging new technology, at turns a nightmare and a miracle, works magically here, the blog posts about him have been widely and quickly shared and people are rushing to help. He may have lost his community after his illness, but his community does not seem to have lost him.

I see that the gay community – I know they have their own troubles and conflicts –  is a loving and intensely supportive community, they care deeply for one another and are generous with their time and skills. I see why Bill misses them so much and why being gay means so much to him.

He is so much less depressed and despairing than he has been. The letters matter, so do the cards and gifts, and he loves postcards. This week he got cakes and cupcakes and a stack of mail.

I was very  touched by a letter from George in Los Angeles, he is an author who came through Cambridge once to research the life of an actor named William McCauley and probably came to Hubbard Hall, our refurbished Opera House, a treasure in our community, most of the old vaudeville house burned or were turn down.

“I visited Cambridge a couple of years ago, ” wrote George. “A beautiful town. I got a tour of the old Opera House and tried to imagine what the world of the theater would have been like back then, back in the day when William McCauley was touring, traveling the country by train, every night a different town, a different opera house, a different theater. It must have been quite a life. I’m sure you have wonderful stories and memories of your acting days too. Best wishes to you,  Bill.”

Bill is getting a lot of mail, I especially love George’s letter, it was warm and interesting and yet so very and subtly supportive. The perfect tone.  I loved reading it to Bill, he was mesmerized by it. It reinforced the idea that Bill can be part of his community again, even if in a different and limited way.

I see the sensitivity to isolation in the letters, the are the perfect medicine for Bill as he struggles to get his bearing after a tough stroke last  year. He is 82 years old.

At this point, Bill can’t read, see clearly, write or socialize easily. In a couple of weeks, he is getting surgery on his eyes. He has a long way to go and he knows it, but his community is giving him reason to hope and to smile.

If you wish to contact Bill or write him letters, we will make sure they are read to him.  For now, he can’t respond to them.  His address is Bill, c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

Mawulidi Diodone Majaliwa was 18 when he fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the endless civil war there. His family did not survive the conflict, only he and his older brother, who saved him and shielded him and guided him to seek refuge in Tanzania.

His brother led him to safety and died soon after they arrived in the United Nations refugee camp, where Mawulidi was to spend the next 20 years:

half of his life.

He is 42 now.

The only thing of value he could take with him on his flight were some old wooden carving tools his grandfather, who was a carver,  had given him. Muwalidi was a carver also, he told me, his grandfather had taught him how to make beautiful wooden sculptures.

Even as a teenager, Mawulidi was often hired to carve his sculptures out of trees – he took a yellowed picture of a sculpture he did of a shepherd and showed it to me. It was beautiful, taller than him. He hoped to be a carver of wood.

Mawulidi was chosen last November by the United Nations to come to the United States, perhaps because he had children and was married.

He was stunned.

“Never once,” he said, did he ever think he would get to the United States. That miracle, he thought, was for wealthy and educated people.

As he boarded the plane with his wife and children,  the U.N. officials told  him his tools were too heavy, and might not be allowed on the plane or into the United States. One of his tools was an ancient axe.

Mawulide left them on the ground, and carries a picture of them everywhere he goes on his cellphone. He looks at them all the time.

He showed them to me, and I saw they were wood carving tools, some large and some small. Mawulidi explained to me that trees in the United States are “good” and hard, unlike trees in the Congo, and so they require strong tools.

He said he would love to carve wood again, perhaps even one day as his regular work. He has a job now in Albany, he works in a bakery making bread.

Brother Francis brought in a dove that Mawulidi had carved earlier this year as a gift to him. He said he would love to make more and perhaps sell doves and other carvings, even some larger ones, like the five-foot tall shepherd he made in the Congo just before the civil war there.

Mawulidi was a quiet man, shy, his eyes lit up only when he talked about wood carving.  From his story, he seemed especially brave and sensitive. I don’t feel I can repeat here all of the atrocities and horrors people like him experienced.

Like the other refugees I had met – our meeting was at RISSE, the refugee and Immigrant center in Albany, arranged by Brother Francis Sengabo, the operations director there – he didn’t want to talk much about his life or traumas in Africa, and he was unable to ask for any kind of help. He was a shy man, and he looked away when I asked him how we could help him.

Francis and my friend Ali (Ahmad Abdullah Mohammed) were in the meeting room with me,  and they both told me that the African refugees cannot ever ask for money, they consider it rude and shameful. “You just have to give him what you want to give him,” Brother Francis told me. “He will never tell you what he needs.”

I took my Iphone and went online and found a 16 piece basic beginner’s wood carving kit on Amazon for $42.99 and I showed it to Mawulidi, and he got excited, I could see it.

I told him I knew it was a beginner’s kit, and looking at the tools he had left behind in Tanzania, it was clear that some were similar and some were larger.  They would be fine for small carvings, but he also did large and polished sculptures.

I suggested this: What if I bought this Sculptworks Kit and brought it to him next week, and he and Brother Francis or Ali could take him to Home Depot – there was one nearby. Then he could go to the Home Depot and he could price out the larger tools he needed to carve wood from the “good” and hardy American trees.

I went online tonight and saw the tools he needs, some were the same as his grandfather’s.

Brother Francis translated this to Mawulidi, whose English was sometimes halting.

His eyes widened, and he nodded. Brother Francis said he would be happy to take him to Home Depot this week, look at their tools, get a price for what he needed and I would meet with him in a week, give him the Sculpworks kit, and also give him enough money to buy the other tools he needed so he could get to work carving again, a dream he never stopped thinking about, but had given up hope of every achieving.

I ordered the kit right there in the meeting room, it will be delivered on Saturday, and I’ll meet with him again next Thursday. I told  him if he wished to set up an artist’s blog and sell his works online, I would help him to do it. He didn’t quite grasp what I was saying, but Brother Francis did, and he will explain it to him later.

Like Devota and the other refugees I have spoken with, Mawulidi showed no emotion of any kind during our talk, even when he talked of awful suffering and loss. He smiled only when he looked at his dove. I was much affected by him, I wanted more than anything else for  him to have his wood carving tools again. Almost all of his entire known world was gone, his family, his village, his country, his work.

But this, he could get back.

I cannot really describe or explain the connection we had, or the almost mystical feeling i had looking across a table at this man, who was quite often looking steadily at me. He must have been wondering what I was and where I came from. I felt we were both meant to meet, we were both where we were supposed to be in that room. I can’t explain it further.

I told Mawulidi that I was not the benefactor, just the messenger. Many people had sent money so that I could to this work, there were many angels out there. I asked Francis to tell him about the Army Of Good – people with hearts and souls who wished to welcome him to America – he only arrived last November – and help him get his tools back. I told him that what I did was look for people with a passion and help them to pursue it.

That, I said, is what I did. I wanted to above the eternal argument and tell the true stories of this very real people, our brothers and sisters on the earth, and in our country.

I asked Francis to ask him how he felt about all this, I wanted to make sure he was comfortable. Mawulidi held up his dove and said something to Francis.

What did he say?, I asked.
He said, “I thank the God that brought you to me.”

That silenced me for a moment. I asked Francis to tell him: “thank you, Mawulidi, you are nothing but a gift to me. You can’t possibly know how happy it will make me and many others when you are carving wood again.

Francis said Mawulidi often read from the Bible and knew it well. He told Francis he thought of the Jews who fled Egypt and slavery and were starving and then manna (unleavened bread)  fell from God in heaven to save them. We were bringing manna from heaven, he said, that’s what it felt like.

I want to say that I have enough money to buy this kit, and the tools Muwalidi will need, I think that will come to about $300. Last week, after I first wrote about Mawulidi,  a woman in Illinois, a blog reader and a member of the Army Of Good, e-mailed me and said this: “Good morning,  Jon, i would like to purchase a set of wood carving tools for this gentleman…please, let me know the next step for that to happen!”

I let her know tonight, and the next step is under way:  this is the way it goes now, this remarkable turn, these angels out there who I do not know, have never met and may never meet, are touching lives like magic fairies with powerful wands.  Good and righteous deeds. I felt a light within me when I saw this man’s face when he realized he could carve again, he is so clearly an artist.

This is what I have been seeking to do, I told Brother Francis, find vulnerable people of all ages, male and female, with passions that need encouragement and holes in their lives that need filling. Small acts of kindness. I met with Devota again also today, I will write about her tomorrow. I didn’t want to take anything away from Mawulidi’s story. If you wish to contribute to this refugee and immigrant project, you can send a donation to Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. or contribute via Paypal, ID jon@bedlamfarm.

You may also contribute directly to RISSE if you choose, they are doing heroic work and have little money, all contributions to them are tax-deductible.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill.

We had a quiet but lovely reading last night at Battenkill Books to kick off the publication of “Talking To Animals: How We Can Understand Them And They Can Understand Us,” out today wherever books are sold.

This is my hometown bookstore and Connie and I were expecting a substantial crowd to launch my discreet book tour,  but there were only eight people in the audience, including Maria (and Red and Fate.)

Of course I would write about it, I have no secrets, and thus am free. I am only embarrassed by lack of effort on my part.

I confess when I came in for my grand entrance with the dogs and saw Connie and her mother alone in the bookstore, I thought of that wonderful Tess Gerritsen line, “Only The Forgotten Are Truly Dead.”

When I first began writing books, I entered a vast Borders Store in Virginia, and there was not one soul sitting in a single one of the 200 seats neatly set up for my talk. I thought I must have come on the wrong night, but the embarrassed manager assured me this was the right night. Eventually, one elderly woman came in out of the cold night and sat in the very rear of the big room and waited. She looked homeless to me, her sneakers had big holes.

I told myself that I would act the same way if every seat in the room was filled, and I gave one of the best talks and readings of my literary life. By the end, two or three employees – ringers, I think, because they took their ID cards off – came in and I got some polite applause.

It is true that failure is always more public than success, that was a good lesson for me.

That night, I resolved to be the same way when there  one as when there is an adoring full house.

Book readings are like that, some take off, some don’t. But you can’t short the people who show up.

Writers are complex, one I knew always quoted Mother Teresa when he came into an empty book store: “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

I told my friend Mother Teresa was talking about the poor and the hungry, for God’s sake, not dramatic and self-absorbed writers. She was all about perspective.

An empty bookstore is not a tragedy. It is part of the writer’s life, fearing being forgotten. Any man or woman who dares to open his soul to the world will experience it, and more than once.

I define myself not by how I deal with great success, but how I deal with different kinds of failure and rejection. Everything I want is on the other side of fear.

This is also part of the way we live in America now, we are letting go of the material world for the realm of screens and images. Everyone sees it, we talk to one another but we no longer know one another.

This is my 25th book, and I have been to a lot of great readings and a lot of grim ones, but I know the era of readings is fading, and that is the true nature of life, even in my own hometown. It doesn’t mean more than what it is.

I loved the crowd that came tonight, there were a number of true friends, people I loved, and I smiled every time I saw them. I remember too many times when there was no one for me to love, or to come to my readings, and I am fortunate to be alive and loved on the earth. This is my 25th book. I can die happy.

I’m not sure why the crowd was so small – the smallest ever for me in my hometown. It could have been the awful storm that hit yesterday, which caused a great deal of damage, or it could have been the rain or it could have been the angels having a bit of fun with me.

Or I could, of course, be over, the secret dread of every creative person. But honestly, I don’t think I’m there yet.

The truth is, we’ll never know. I’ve been on tours with 200 people one night and five the next day. Nobody ever knows why. Tomorrow, I’m coming into Battenkill to sign 200 more books to be shipped out. Anyone who complains about that is a fool.

The small crowd didn’t stop us from having a great deal of fun, intimate gatherings are often the most meaningful. I can look into the eyes of people and know right a way how I’m doing. I liked what I said about the book. I will perfect it a bit more with each reading. But it went well.

In a few years I doubt there will be physical book readings at ll, only video conferences, book readings in the digital realm. I don’t do nostalgia, I had my turn, it is somebody else’s turn.

The material realm is giving way to the digital.

More and more, people go on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat to meet and socialize with people, not to physical gatherings in the physical world. Art least 100 people told me they were excited to be coming to the reading and couldn’t wait. But I know that to be Hollywood agent talk, I know they mean to, but life often intercedes or distracts.

There are countless good reasons to stay home.

I am not into nostalgia, the days when I was driven around in limousines to four star hotels are long gone. It was common just a few years ago to  face huge and adoring crowds – 1,200 people came to see me in Forth Worth, Texas one night – but I can’t say I miss the old days. This is my time. I am happier and more creative now, for sure. I have my blog, the center of my creative life.

I am content with where I am. And I am still at it, I have yet another book to finish, and more readings ahead of me. This is the fascinating part, more than four million people read my writing regularly, but it is an effort to get a dozen to come and hear me talk.  I have never been read by more people in different places.

This is America today, I think.

And then there are sales.

The reports about my book sales are good. Connie has taken more than 700 pre-orders, a record for her store. My publisher e-mailed me tonight to say they have had a good response from their accounts. Barnes & Noble has ordered 3,600 copies and Amazon took 2,200, independent book stores  have ordered 1,600 copies of the book.

Those are good numbers  these days so early on.

My editor said Simon and Schuster has printed 14,000 copies of the book, he thought a second printing was “imminent.” I  hope so. Publishers have to fight for every single book. Mr. Trump is harming book sales by taking up much of the media that would have gone to culture and book coverage. In the media, it is pretty much all Trump all the time.  That is hurting a lot of young writers.  Maybe he will be quiet for a week or so. It does not seem likely.

Writers always say that you can tell who your friends are by who shows up at readings, but I do not feel that way about it. Failure is never fatal in itself, I think, but failure to change or accept change is deadly. One of my first writing students, the very gifted John Greenwood, a truck driver turned brilliant creative, drove two  hours to see me. I really appreciated that.

I don’t take it personally. I am willful and determined, and when I was eight years old I decided to be a writer one day, and decades later, that is what I am. And that is what I will be when I die.

Readings are important to authors. We work on books for years, and first night readings are a big deal, a coming out, the first opportunity to talk about our books and gauge the response in the eyes and body language and yawns of the audience. At readings, the book comes to life and becomes real. That happened to me at Battenkill tonight.

The book is alive, warm and very real.

There was only one yawn tonight, and when I saw two, I wrapped it up, it meant 25 per cent of my audience was tired. Red was stellar as usual, politely greeting everyone. And young Fate, at her first reading, jumped up on every single person and then lay down at Maria’s feet and went to sleep. A triumph.

I talked about the visualizations in the book, and the story of the New York Carriage Horses, and the urgent need to understand the real nature and needs of animals if they are to remain among us in our world. I talked about my efforts to communicate with animals, and to listen to them.

My editor said the book was full of “heart and wisdom,” and that feels good to hear.

He said there was growing excitement about my next book “Lessons From Bedlam Farm,” and that was wonderful to hear.

But the next few weeks belong to “Talking To Animals.” I will keep pushing those numbers up, I hope. I want that second printing, and also a third one. I intend to be relevant and to write books to the last gasp, even when nobody comes out.

If you wish to order the book through Battenkill Books (it is no. 1 in “Hot New Releases”), you can do so here. I will sign and personalize every copy and Connie will give you a lovely tote bag for free.

Do not let anyone tell you there are no angels in the world.

I encountered one last night. A few days ago, writing about Ali and the kids at the Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus (RISSE) in Albany, New York. I wrote that Ali has been trying for a very long time to raise money and get 16 of the kids he teaches to the Great Escape Adventure Park near Lake George, N.Y.

He has not been able to raise the money. Yesterday, a very lovely and generous human being named Kimberly (she lives in the Midwest, where some of the world’s nicest people live) offered to pay the $800 ticket price to the park. I told her I am certain that we can raise any additional funds quickly.

I called Kimberly last night and spoke with her, and there is nothing more affirming than meeting such a good, open and warm-hearted person. Watching the news, we can easily forget that most people are eager to do good, given the chance.

Kimberly got it right away and was eager to support it. She will make it possible. I didn’t even get a chance to fund-raise on the blog, the Army of Good is everywhere.

This makes the trip possible.  Ali messaged me this morning, he said he was happy to know me. Ditto.

This morning, I found an angel on the Great Escape side, her name is Sandy, and she was extremely helpful and supportive of the RISSE kids, who come from some of the most troubled places on the earth.  Many of them have not yet been outside of the city of Albany.

The Great Escape will open up their hearts and souls, they need nothing more than a good day of pure fun. They have known almost unrelenting dislocation, uncertainty and sometimes, isolation. Sandy was a pleasure to talk to, we will make this happen.

There are lots of options at places like the Great Escape and Sandy patiently and clearly explained them to me. I even wrote them down and remember them.

Today I’m meeting with Ali at RISSE and we’ll go over the options with him. The prices vary depending on what time of the summer we go, and whether do or do not  get a catered lunch along with the tickets, or use Comet Cash, get photos taken on all the rides, and do or do not go home with  a big Great Escape Souvenir Cup.

(The cup is $9.99. The kids will get to understand America even better.)

I think the best deal is late June. It’s a day long experience.

We have to hash out some final details before it can happen.

My head is spinning. Sandy is great, sometimes you just find people who make things happen professionally and courteously. In fact, if you wish to e-mail her and thank her for supporting this, it might make her day. She is Sandy at [email protected].

So we’ll pick a date, do our paperwork, sign a group contract, figure out exactly how much money we need to do this things, and I have agreed to come along on the trip. With my camera. I can’t imagine a better way to spend a day. I messaged Kimerbly this morning (she is modest and doesn’t want her full name disclosed) and said this is so much more fun than arguing about the world.

We don’t need any more money at the moment, thanks.  Kimberly wants to fund the trip, but I don’t wish to take advantage of her. If we need more help, I will either get the money or ask for help. No need to send any. Save it for the soccer uniforms. They will be a lot cheaper, at least I think so.

Ali has been trying to pull this off for a long time, he loves the kids he teaches very much. It’s wonderful to be able to help make this possible for him and them, thank you Kimberly. I don’t mind amusement parks much myself.

I’ve been to the Great Escape a few times, interestingly. When Maria and I first got together, she was working at a home for the emotionally disabled in Argyle, N.Y. She often took some of the residents to the Great Escape and sometimes I met her there.  I often think of it when I think of us. Maybe this time I’ll get on some of the faster rides.