COMMITMENT

Don is a neighbor of ours who has a bad back, has had back surgery and is never without pain. He owns a ranch several miles away and it is a show place. Never a weed anywhere. A huge garden, with enough vegetables and fruit to feed many families--and it does. They are very generous and are always taking bushels of produce to the neighbors.

Don was irrigating his field the other night and had taken his grandson with him. Supposedly for help, but knowing Don, it was to teach the grandson how to work. The first part of the evening found Don starting to slip on the bank of the six foot deep irrigation ditch. His feet went out from under him and on his way down, he reached up to grab something, anything, to break his fall. He found something and grabbed it. The electric fence. You guessed it, he got a tremendous jolt and at that point he was glad for the descent, it broke his hold on the fence.

He was shook up, wet, muddy and hurting but nothing stops this man. He is committed. So he and his grandson continued to irrigate. Later, he started to slip again, in a different spot and down he went, this time head first, right into the muddy, sandy, deep ditch. Just before he disappeared out of sight his grandson heard him say, "Oh, no. Not again."

When the grandson got to his grandfather he saw Don coming up out of the water, sputtering, spitting sand and water. His glasses were broken and hanging off one ear. The Grandson said, "Grandpa, you can't EVER come over here alone." Then they started to laugh and Don says they laughed off and on for a half hour.

I imagine today was not a pleasant day for him but where was he today? At church. When I asked him how his back was he laughed and said, "Don't ask." Then he told me his week-end irrigation story.

I want to be like Don. Never quitting. Always laughing, even through tough times.

More power to you Don. You are one of my heroes.