1922. Walking the city walls

(Hi – I’m still having a break from answering comments. A bit otherwise engaged! More in a day or two).

Timothy was exceedingly rich. He hadn’t simply become rich by inheriting riches from his father, although that was a good half of it. He had become doubly rich through hard work. He was a businessman of unbridled talent and success. Hence his riches.

He lived in a beautiful house with a spacious garden, and although he employed a professional gardener to come in once a week, he enjoyed gardening himself and did a great deal of it when time allowed.

He was also interested in breeding tropical fish, and hence he had a good number of significantly large aquariums in tasteful places around his house. Of course when we say “house” we mean it was more than a house; it was a mansion; a manor; a regal grange.

When Timothy hit forty he thought, “Why am I working so hard? I have all this money, so how much more do I need? I have many interests. Why don’t I pursue them? After all there’s enough money to live more than comfortably for the rest of my life and longer.”

So that’s what he did.

He abandoned work and took to travel! He went to Africa, Europe, Asia. He photographed so many things of history, so many scenes. When he needed a break he would come home and unwind in the garden. In the evenings he would view with pleasure the places he had been. Then it was back into travel!

It was while he was in Verona in Italy. He was walking the city walls, and was high up and passing the Basilica of St. Zeno. He stopped. He thought of something. He burst into tears.

It was all a waste of time; it was all meaningless, because he had no one to tell his adventures to. There was no one to share things with.

1680. Forever grateful

Fergus was a little bit of a loner. He kept to himself quite a bit. It’s not that he was anti-social. He would say hello most courteously when greeted by a neighbour over the fence or in the supermarket. But he liked his own space and the neighbours respected that.

No one knew much about him. He never seemed to have visitors or family call. He seemed happy enough in his garden. He had, he once told next-door neighbours Mr and Mrs Wilburton, retired from work a good seven or eight years ago. He had been “self-employed”.

It was the Wilburtons who had gone out of their way to invite Fergus to their Thanksgiving dinner. Fergus accepted, and for the last four years he had enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Wilburton family.

But all good things must come to an end. It was a sad day when Fergus died. Quite swiftly. He’d been ill for a week. Things were not going to be quite the same without Fergus at Thanksgiving.

When Thanksgiving did arrive the phone rang. It was Fergus’s attorney. Fergus had left them four million eight hundred thousand and forty-two dollars and a card that simply said “THANK YOU”.

What excitement! Once the lawyer’s fees and the Tax Department were dealt with it was time to go on the trip of a lifetime they had only ever dreamt about. They went to Africa! There, Mrs Wilburton contracted malaria and died, which could never have happened without Fergus’s generosity.

1486. Cindy’s lemon cheesecake

Cindy’s lemon cheesecake was famous all over the county. Whenever there was to be a community function of note – the end of the school year, an established local leaving the area, a wedding or a wake – Cindy’s phone would ring: “Cindy, could you make your lemon cheesecake?”

Cindy was generous to a fault. Of course she would make it. But hadn’t she – so many times, so many numerous times – shared the recipe with almost everyone else in the county? Had they ever thought of making a lemon cheesecake themselves?

Yes they had. But even when they used Cindy’s recipe things never turned out as mouth-watering. Cindy knew it, but then she alone knew that she had shared another recipe and not the one with the magic touch.

711. Thank you for sharing this

Thank you for sharing this, Amber, it’s so uplifting. When you said your boyfriend left without saying goodbye, I just about cried. And then when he came back I did cry, it was so beautiful. I actually sat there and wept all over my keyboard.

I can’t believe that anyone would be so heartless as to leave you for someone else, and later that same day when they discovered they weren’t wanted at the new person’s place, they came back to you.

And to think you took him in! Took him back! And then he left again for someone else, and he came back and you took him in again. I cried three times.

And then he left and came back, and left and came back. Each time you took him in.

Sometimes I suspect he might be using you.

Listen the story being read HERE!