A would-be mother goose sits on her nest in the rain while her dead mate lies motionless, after dying a few days after his mate finished laying eggs. 2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle
This year I decided to find and photograph two Canada goose nests, hoping to follow the would-be parents from laying eggs to hatching their young. I found two pairs in two different areas and visited the nests daily. One pair laid three eggs, hatching three healthy goslings who left with the nest with their parents. But tragedy struck the other pair.
Just a few days after mama finished laying her six eggs, her mate died, barely a foot or so from the nest. Did he eat something sprayed with chemicals or die trying to protect the nest on the small island from predators? Saddened, I expected the female would soon abandon the nest without her mate’s protective help.
She didn’t leave, and for the next 25 days she went it alone through storms and rising waters. I watched in fascination and admiration as she sat motionless, incubating and trying to protect her clutch of unhatched eggs, while the dead body of her mate lie motionless nearby.
Day after day, night after long night rains pounded the area and the river grew angry and fast, swirling inches from the nest. I was sure the nest would be swept away and all of the eggs lost.
2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle
I watched in anger as another pair of geese lurking close by tried to take over her nest. She fought valiantly and ran the gander away.
2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle
As I continued to visit, the stench of the rotting gander carcass was so strong if wafted up to the bridge above the river. I wondered how the mother goose stayed on the nest.
2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle
I was scheduled to go to Canada for a week of teaching and checked the nest both the morning and evening before leaving. Finally, the afternoon before I left, I held my nose and checked the nest one final time. To my joy, one of the goslings was hatching. Another egg had peck marks where a baby goose was trying to enter the world. When I returned home a week later, the mother goose was gone and there were three unhatched eggs still in the nest. I searched for several days but could find no trace of the mother, who likely traveled down river. A day or so later, a raccoon, fox or skunk had feasted on the remaining eggs.
2025 Copyright Dave LaBelle
I confess I became a little emotional watching the courage and resolve of this mother goose over the course of the month. What an incredible lesson in bravery and the sacrificial resolve of a mother.
The odds of this poor widowed goose (Canada geese usually mate for life) being able to raise the three hatchlings to adulthood without the gander’s help are not good. (When a pair of geese raise young ones, often the father protects, swimming behind the goslings.) But then, she beat the odds for nearly a month, so I would like to believe she finished the job.
“Why do you come to see me?” Therese Reicher asked me while visiting her in a long-term nursing facility in Dubuque.
“Because I love you, and because Jesus told me to.”
She cocked her head and frowned suspiciously.
“Well, not directly,” I followed.
“Besides, I thought you could use some company, and somebody to read to you? If I was in here, I’d like someone to visit me.”
That was in January of 2024, the beginning of an unlikely 14-month friendship.
I met Therese a year or so earlier while working on a story about her church choir director. At 96, she was gingerly making her way down the narrow and steep metal spiral staircase that joined the sanctuary floor and the loft where the organist played and the choir sang.
“Oh, don’t take my picture,” she barked while navigating the last steps of the stairwell.
“Why not?” I shot back.
She grumbled and frowned then proceeded to tell me her daughter, Bec, worked for the Commercial, the same newspaper I was working with.
“Yes, I know, I like your daughter; she’s a talented lady.”
After that first encounter, whenever I spotted Therese about to come inside Brew and Brew, the local coffee shop to visit with friends, I would quickly help usher her inside. Though she fussed and grumbled under her breath, it was evident she liked the attention.
“You don’t even remember my name, do you? She challenged the first time I walked her arm in arm to her seat. “It’s not Theresa!”
Another day I helped her put a letter in the post box after she dropped it trying to reach her skinny little arm from the car swallowing her while driving. I don’t know how she saw above the dashboard.
Therese lived directly across the street from the St. Francis Xavier Basilica in Dyersville, Iowa, where she attended and, along with daughter, Bec, sang in the choir. And it is fair to say, though good-hearted, Therese was known to be prickly at times – all the more reason I determined to befriend her, whether she liked it or not.
On Dec 17, 2023, Therese fell in her home, and after surgery to repair a fractured leg including having a plate inserted – she needed to stay off her feet for at least three months. Her family searched for a long-term facility that offered the care she would need, but the closest was in Dubuque, a 30-minute drive from Dyersville.
I told her daughter Bec – a writer and copy editor for the newspaper, who also runs Reichter Shoes, the store her father and mother started some 70 years earlier – that I planned to begin visiting her mother.
Therese and husband Ray Reicher, who passed in December, 2009, had eight children – five girls and three boys.
Soon, an unlikely friendship blossomed that continued to grow for the next year or so.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she assured her neighbors at the facility. He has a wife.”
Quick-witted, with a good memory, a healthy curiosity and sense of humor that caught most of my jokes or puns, visiting Therese, 24 years my senior, soon became a ritual we both looked forward to. I visited as often as possible, usually on Saturdays, especially during the season when my sons had home lacrosse games. But I tried to see Therese at least once a week, throughout the year. The only weeks I missed were when I was out of town or out of state. And I usually took a camera and recorded our conversations. The woman who fussed the first time I photographed her, soon grew comfortable with the camera.
My last visit with Therese was on Friday, March 29, 2025. She left this world on April 3, while I was out of state in Minnesota.
Rather that write a long narrative, I am sharing excerpts from some of our many visits.
Jan 20, 2024
I began reading to Therese this day. She asked me to read from a book I had written titled Bridges and Angels: The Story of Ruth.
Therese: “Does it have a good ending?”
Me: “I think so.”
Therese: “Now, if I fall asleep, just keep going.”
Me: “I have put a lot of people to sleep.”
Me: “This reminds me of a story I heard about a long-winded preacher who, in the middle of his sermon noticed a man in the back, sleeping. He stopped and yelled to the man next to the sleeping man, ‘Hey, wake that guy up. You wake him up, you put him to sleep,’ he replied.”
Therese: “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Me: “You can just close your eyes and listen and I will read to you. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book to someone, not since my kids were little.”
Therese: “Nice.”
Jan 26, 2024
Jan 26, 2024
We begin the visit talking about Iowa women’s basketball star, Caitlin Clarke.
Therese: “None of this has gone to her head. She is just a nice, nice person.”
Me: “I am going to go see a man in the way home that is dying. His name is Vince; he lives in Peosta.”
Therese: “That is so kind of you.”
Me: “I’m thankful I get to do that. If we can’t be a comfort to people, what’s the point of living?”
Therese: “I am glad I got to be your friend.”
Me: “I am glad I got to be your friend, too.”
Therese: “I am still on the choir; I haven’t retired.”
Me: “Do you think you will go back?”
Therese: “If I can get out of here, I will.”
Me: “Other than your leg, you seem healthier.”
Therese: “If God wants me to stay here, I’d better be after it.”
Me: I was just telling my wife, that one of the things I miss about preaching, is comforting people, going into their homes when they were sick. She said, ‘You don’t have to be a preacher, just be you.’ ”
Holding her hand, I ask about her rings.
Me: “Why are there three rings?”
Jan 26, 2024
Therese: “This is my wedding ring. I was married in a double wedding. My sister and I were married the same time in Manchester. And my brothers sang for us. They were in the men’s choir at Loras.”
Therese: “I remember so well, with my brother who was the oldest. After the singing, my dad gave my sister away, and my older brother came down from the choir and gave me to Ray.”
Therese: “And Ray said, I know you don’t love me enough but I will make you. And it was so true and he did. He was such a nice man.”
Therese: “He had told my mother I should not be going with him. Because he was buying a tavern and he was seven years older. ‘It just wasn’t a good idea.’ I told my mother, If God wants us to break up, He’ll take care of it.”
(Therese and husband Ray Reicher, who passed in December, 2009, raised eight children – five girls and three boys.)
Me: Whenever I see your daughter, I hug her.”
Therese: “Good for you.”
Therese: We were not an emotional family. We had five kids in our immediate family and I don’t remember ever getting a kiss from my mother. Never.”
“Me: “Ever?”
Therese: “No.”
Therese: “Our family was not emotional. It took Ray a long time. When our boys were going to college he always shook their hand. I said, Ray, you could hug them. Then he started and he started hugging everybody.”
Feb 10, 2024
Therese is eating lunch.
Therese: “I have been waiting for you all morning.”
Me: “I have been trying to stop by after lunch. But if you want me to, I’ll come before lunch?”
Me: “How about I read to you while you eat. How do you like them apples?
Therese: “Pretty nice.”
Me: “How have you been?”
Therese: “Oh, I am fighting trying to be nice.”
Me: “I am going to read today from the book of John. You get to eat food and eat from the Bible, too.”
Me: “Why were you getting upset today?
Therese: “Oh, I don’t know. Some of the aids are sassy. I have a hard time with that. I try to stay calm, but it’s hard when you sit here by yourself all day.”
Me: “How’s the food today?”
Therese: “If Rick was here, he wouldn’t eat it.” (Rick is her daughter Bec’s husband.)
Therese: “When I first got I here, they had an evaluation of some kind, to see what you want. Well, I said, mine is, I want to die.”
Therese: I prayed God would take me in my sleep.”
Me: “Then you decided you were not going to leave?”
Therese: “Well, I knew I didn’t have any choice, so you might as well say, ok.”
Me: “I am glad you didn’t.”
Me: “I told Beck the other day that I was coming to see you and that you have become my friend.”
Me: “What if we stole you out of here? What if we just took you out on a joy ride and they came on here and you were gone?”
Therese: “They would take me off of Medicare, that’s for sure.”
Therese: “My voice is getting more hazy because I don’t use it enough.”
Me: “How are you doing with your leg?”
Therese: “It’s going well. Yes, but it’s just not going fast enough. I just have to learn to walk again.”
Me: “Do you like people to pray with you?”
Therese: “Yes.”
Me: “Would you like me to pray with you?”
Therese: “Sure.”
Therese: “Thank you.”
Me: “Thank you, my friend.”
Therese: “I was missing you. The first time you came, it was after mass.”
Me: Yes, remember I picked you up and rolled you down to your room.”
Therese: “Now, do you trim your own beard?”
Me: “Yes, I know, I need to trim it.”
Me: “Are you going to watch the Superbowl tomorrow?
Therese: “I hope so, if somebody comes to watch it with me. It’s not any fun watching those games alone.”
Me: “I am going to read today from the book of John.”
Therese: “Are you going to bring me another one of your books?”
Me: “Oh yeah, I forgot all about it. I will next time.”
Me: “This is perfect. You get to eat food and eat from the Bible, too.”
Me: “Alright, I am going to read another chapter.”
Feb 17, 2024
Me: “It’s like 25 degrees and the wind is blowing.”
“Therese: “25 is really cold.”
Therese: “I need that black pillow.”
Me: “Should I put that underneath you?”
Therese: “That’s relief. Now, give me a shove back.”
Me: “One more time, I am going to lift you a little bit.”
Therese: “Oh, wonderful.”
Therese: “I get so disgusted because they don’t do therapy with my leg. I haven’t stood on that foot since Dec 15th“
Me: “I guess when it broke, it broke and twisted?”
Therese: “I am to the point where it’s not hurting anymore. It’s so frustrating when you can’t help yourself. It’s just terrible.”
Me: “I know, I am sorry. I don’t look forward to the day when I can’t help myself.”
Therese: “I feel good. I would like to go for a walk, but my leg doesn’t like me.”
Me: “Maybe this will teach you patience?”
Therese: “Oh, I have more patience than Bec does.” She is laughing.
Me: “I trimmed my beard a little. Feel how soft that is.”
Therese: “Oh, it is soft.”
Me: “Somebody brought you flowers.”
Therese: “Rick came and watched half of the Superbowl with me.”
She is chattering away, talking about her grandchildren and sports.
The aid comes in with pills she is supposed to take.
Therese: “What are you giving me?”
Me: “She is giving you birth control pills.” She laughs.
Therese: “I wanted to tell you something and we got off the thing I wanted to tell you.”
Me: “You wanted to tell me how handsome and nice I am. That’s all right, I appreciate it.”
Therese: “You are very nice, thank you.”
Therese: “You are here every week.”
Me: When I can, I try to be here.”
Therese: “That’s nice.”
Me: “It’s important. Because if I was in here, I would want you to come visit me.”
Therese: “I would if I could drive.”
March 2, 2024
Me: What’s new since I saw you last week?
Therese: “I was doing therapy yesterday but it was so hard. I finally said, do you want me to faint? Oh my God. Young girls don’t realize that you actually get tired. Do this, do this. I can’t do anymore.”
Me: “I saw that Caitlin Clarke finally broke the record for the most points in college.”
Therese: “She is going to the WNBA and she is going to have a hard time there.”
“Therese: She has plenty of money now.”
Me: “I am wealthy, too, in everything but money. They say a rolling stone doesn’t gather any moss, and I don’t have any moss on me.”
Me: “I don’t know what I would do if I had a million dollars? I’d probably just give it away.”
Therese: “When you are in a place like this, it really goes fast.”
Me: “I don’t know if I would do it, be in a place like this. I think I would run off.”
Therese: “When you can’t walk, you can’t run.” She laughs.
Me: “Good point.”
We talk about her husband, Ray.
Therese: Some people can just start a conversation with anybody and Ray was that kind of person.”
Therese: We were married almost 70 years.”
Therese: “I always said I was a spoiled bride. And I was. We were such a good match. He was a good man.”
Ray and Therese on their wedding day
Me: “You’ve had a very blessed life so far.”
Therese: “I don’t remember doing anything but working until I graduated from college and then I taught school for four years. I was 17 when I started.”
Therese: “They didn’t pay me until I turned 18 because they didn’t want the state to know they had a teacher under 18. (She taught all subjects and all ages up to 8th grade in the one-room school house). And there were twin boys that were about this much taller than I was.”
Me: So, you taught all grades, all ages?”
April 27, 2024
Therese: “You have a new hat?”
Me: “Yeah, nice of you to notice. Did you miss me?”
Therese: “Yesss!”
Me: What are you looking forward to today?”
Therese: “I really can’t look forward to anything.”
Me: “That’s not good, you need to look forward to something.”
Therese: “Let me ask you, the last chapter. Was that totally imagination?” She was asking a book I had written titled Bridges and Angels: The story of Ruth.
Me: “The book is mostly nonfiction, but about a third, the last part, is mostly fiction. I wrote an ending I could live with.”
Me: “Are you going to eat your lunch? I will wait and sit with you.”
Therese: “I don’t want to eat today. My daughter said, ‘you got to eat protein.’ I said if I miss protein one night, it’s not going to kill me.”
June 22, 2024
Me: Buongiorno! Buongiorno!
Therese: “I didn’t think anybody would talk to me.”
Me: “Somebody did.”
Me: “It’s me, I got back from Denver. As soon as I got back I said I wanted to come see my friend.
Therese: “Why couldn’t you see your friend?”
Me: “You! I am talking about you.”
Me: “You’re my friend, whether you like it or not.”
Me: “What’s new? What has happened in the past week?”
Therese: “Bec’s family came to visit. The girls came. There were nine people in the room.”
Me: “Oh gosh, I wish I were here to see them.”
Therese: “They were here from Monday on, but they didn’t come to see me and Bec didn’t tell me because she wanted to surprise me. It was Bec’s son-in-law, he was the head of the crew, and the girls. One of the girls had a boyfriend with her.”
Therese: “It was really almost a shock. In this little room and to have nine people walk in all at once. And you can’t offer them drinks, you can’t offer them a chair. You just sit there like a lump on a log.”
Me: “Looks like you got a new quilt.”
Therese: “I’ve had that. When I sit still my hands get really cold. Now all I take is a towel and wrap my hands in a towel to keep them warm. It can be 108 degrees outside and my hands are cold.”
Me: “They say cold hands, warm heart. It’s warm in here, warm as a nursing home in here.”
Me: “I went to Denver and watched two Dodger games. My son Henry and I went to two baseball games, and one was one was one of the best baseball games I’ve seen. The Dodgers came back and scored 7 runs in the ninth inning and won. Unheard of.”
Therese: “They were professional teams? Is that why you went down there?”
Me: “I seldom do anything with a single motive. We went to see family, see friends and go to the baseball game.”
Therese: “I turn the tv on and whatever is on that station, which is what I watch which is usually something stupid. And that television has stupid stuff on it.”
Therese: “I like to watch ice hockey. I don’t know when they do this and this and this; I don’t know all the rules. It’s really fast.”
Therese: “I thought oh, he’s not coming today.”
Me: “So, I surprised you?”
Therese: “You did.”
Therese: “They get tired of me talking about how nice everything was.”
Me: “Well, you’ve had a wonderful life.”
Therese: “I did.”
Me: “You still do.”
Me: “Think about people right now living in places where people are shooting at them and they don’t have enough food. This isn’t perfect, but it is better than a lot of places.”
I talk with a little lady shuffling by. The woman shares that she has suffered 17 strokes.
Therese: “You can start a conversation with anybody.”
Me: “I like people. And I just love these people, I appreciate them. Most people I meet are in such a hurry to do something; people are not in a hurry here. They have a chance to talk.”
Therese: “I don’t plan on this being permanent, but she does. She knows with what she has.”
Therese: “I don’t plan on being here that long.”
Me: “You might live another 10 years.”
Therese: “I plan on living a long time, but not in here. I want to be in my house.”
“Therese: “I think you need to get a new cap.”
Me: “I like this one.”
Therese: “It is still better than the last one.” She laughs.
She shares about the house she and Ray built.
Therese: “We were the very first house built in the country, intentionally. We were there 52 years and raised all eight kids there. It was painted a cranberry red; It wasn’t barn red. We had a Christmas tree farm on 10 acres.”
Therese: “He was 27 when we got married.”
Me: “Wow, you didn’t waste any time having kids.
Therese: “Well, it was just one of those things. We didn’t worry about having children.
Me: “I hope everything is good.”
Therese: “It will turn out good. I know there is a lot of sarcasm.”
Me: “Ok, Therese, I am going to have to get going. An hour flies by when I am here.”
Me: “Alright, honey, I am so glad to see you.” I kiss her on the top of her head.
Me: “I love you, honey, I am glad you are doing alright.”
Therese: “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Me: “I come when I can.”
Therese: “I really, really appreciate it.”
Me: “I appreciate seeing you; we are friends.”
“Yes, that’s nice.”
Aug 10, 2024
Therese: “I thought maybe you moved? You have moved a lot.”
Me: “Yes, but if I hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t know you.”
She laughs.
Therese: “You wouldn’t know what you missed.”
She keeps laughing, a girlish laugh , a kind laugh, not sarcastic or with any hidden meaning.
Me: “Did you think I forgot you?”
Therese: “I did. I did think you forgot me.” She laughs.
Me: “Thank you. I have missed you, too. Thank you.”
Me: “Have you ever wondered why we became friends?”
Therese silently contemplates the question.
Me: “Maybe we are where we are supposed to be? Maybe you need more experiences to teach you more patience? Maybe I need you to help me? Maybe we need each other?”
Me: “I guarantee you, you are more patient now than when I first met you.”
Therese: “You didn’t know me.”
Me: “I think the loving side of you came out because you don’t have control; you have to depend on other people. Isn’t that true?”
Therese: “Yeah. Yeah, I was so totally Independent. Then all of a sudden you can’t go to the bathroom by yourself.”
Me: “So maybe that’s part of the lesson?”
Therese slips back to the complaining self she is working on overcoming.
Therese: “The men here are so crabby. There isn’t a nice man in here.”
Therese: “There is one man, without saying anything, he looks at me all the time.”
“Maybe he’s not getting any lovin’, nobody kissing on him?”
Tickled, she can’t contain herself and begins laughing.
Aug 27, 2024
Me: “How are things going?”
Therese: “Disturbing. My favorite aid quit. She decided it was too much; she worked here 8 years.”
Therese: This morning was a shower morning. It’s very hard. It makes me more tired than if I do it myself.”
Me: “You look good today. Your color looks good.”
Therese” “Thank you.”
Therese: “I can’t get my jacket on, can you help me?”
Therese: “You have a new hat.”
Me: “Did you miss me?”
Therese: “Yeah”
Therese: “I felt like when I first came in here, I just didn’t want to be here. I prayed at night that God would take me. I don’t know what happened? Overnight I just kept going. So I am still here.”
Me: “You are not sure what your purpose is? Maybe God wanted you to live so you get to know me? For my sake, not yours.”
She laughs hard and repeatedly.
Therese: “If I go to bed tonight and God wants me to die, I die. If I get up in the morning …”
Therese: “One of the aids said I am bossy. I am not bossy, it’s just the way I talk. You try so hard to be nice and you don’t feel like being nice at all.”
Therese: “I slept late. I was so tired.”
Therese: “I thought, he’s not going to come today, anyway.”
Theres: “I must have fallen asleep., I was really surprised when you showed up.”
Therese: “Please wake me if you come and I am asleep. I can always sleep, but I can’t always talk to somebody. I told several people that. Please don’t let me sleep.”
Therese: “Aren’t those pretty Cherry trees?”
Me: “I think they are called redbuds?”
Therese: “I call them flowering crabs.”
This day we talk about everything – marriage, children, grandchildren, her faith.
Therese: “So, why do you keep coming to see me?”
Me: “I get to come over here and tell you how much I love you and how much I love seeing you.”
Therese: “I really appreciate it.”
Me: “I really love seeing you. You are my friend.”
Therese: “Yes, good friend.”
“Somebody said, you are my boyfriend. I said no, he has a wife.”
Me: “I thank God that He gives me the time and mental space to come see you.”
Therese: “Thank you.”
Me: “We should all take time to love each other.”
Sept 14, 2024
Therese: “I was hoping you were going to come a little later because one of my sons came by yesterday.”
Me: “It is 82 degrees and might rain later maybe?”
Me: “You look good today. Healthy today.”
Therese: “Did I ever?”
Me: “Well, you look like you have adjusted more, made this home. Pictures on the wall, new plants.
Therese: “When they tell you that you are not ever going home again…”
Me: “Have you had breakfast?”
Therese: The helper said I already had my breakfast. I said I know I didn’t go to the dining room. And I should know if I ate or not.”
Me: “Last time I was here I met a lady named Patty and she was out front crying because she missed her parents. She was a sweet young lady.”
Therese: “What was her story?”
Me: “I don’t yet, but I am going to find out. You know me.”
She laughs.
Me: “We leave no story unturned.”
Today, her voice is faint and I sit close to hear her.
I share with her what assignments I am working on. She wants to know the details. I share about my brother who lives in Arizona. We talk about her family – Rick and Beck, the rest of her children and grandchildren. She tells me how Beck and Rick met and how she met her husband, Ray. We talk about her recent dreams of golfing with Ray.
Me: “Do you ever think about how you want people to remember you?”
Therese: “No. I never felt I did anything so spectacular that they would remember me.”
Therese: “Why do you keep coming to see me? Why me?”
Me: “Are you complaining? Isn’t it nice to have a stranger love you? It is a reciprocal relationship. We both benefit from our visits. And because you’re my friend and I love you. We built a true friendship of trust and sharing, haven’t we?”
Therese: “Yes.”
Me: “Do you want me to rub your feet?”
Therese: “No, they are too sore.”
Me: “Besides, if you need someone to say something nice about you, I can do that, too.”
Therese: “What would you say?”
Me: “I would say Miss Therese is a lovely lady and a lovely friend who takes a little while to get to know, but once you know her there is a sweet and beautiful kindness. You remind me of what a friend said about the women in Israel – they can be prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside.”
Me: “I think you are sweeter now than you have ever been, and shouldn’t it be that way? Shouldn’t we get sweeter with age?
Therese: “Oh really?”
Me: “I think I am sweeter now than I have ever been, too, because I have been given enough time to learn what’s of value, what is important.”
Therese: “You’re the kind of guy that notices these things others would not.”
Me: “I think that God gave me a compassionate heart that I could see you.”
Therese: “I don’t think He has that in line.”
Tickled, she can’t contain herself and begins laughing. We talk for over an hour, and our conversation leads to burial.
Me: When I die I would like to be buried in one of those natural, garden places where the bugs and worms eat me.”
She laughs and laughs.
Therese: “I’ve been debating that for a long time, how to be buried? Whether I want an open casket.”
Therese: “How long if they go to a morgue would they leave the body?”
Me: “I don’t have that answer.”
Therese: “What happened to you? Do you know how long that is? A month, whenever you went to Denver. You didn’t even talk to me about the baseball game.”
Me: “Have you ever wondered why we became friends?”
Me: “Maybe we are where we are supposed to be? Maybe you need to me more experiences to teach you more patience? Maybe I need you to help me? Maybe we need each other?
Therese: “I don’t know how I could ?” Both of us laugh.
Me: “I guarantee you, you are more patient now than when I first met you.”
“You didn’t know me.”
Me: “I think the loving side of you came out because you don’t have control; you have to depend on other people. Isn’t that true?”
Theresa: “Yeah. Yeah.”
Therese: “I was so totally Independent. Then all of a sudden you can’t go to the bathroom by yourself.”
Me: “So, maybe that’s part of the lesson?”
I share with her how my father was independent and could be stubborn, even mean until he was no longer able to care for himself. In his final years, he was much kinder and tolerant. I never thought his pride would allow him be helped by his children.
Therese slips back to her complaining self, she is working on overcoming.
Therese: “The men here are so crabby; there isn’t a nice man in here. There is one man, without saying anything, he looks at me all the time. “ Her face contorts.
Me: “Maybe he’s not getting any lovin’, nobody kissing on him?”
Tickled, she can’t contain herself and begins laughing.
Therese: “I don’t think that’s it.”
Jan 28, 2025
Me: “Is there a stranger behind you?”
Therese: “I don’t know who is behind me.”
Me: “A stranger who you haven’t seen in forever.” (I was in California the past 6 weeks).
Therese: “Oh David! Oh, my goodness, David, I thought about you so much.”
My heart melts with her sincere and unusual outburst of emotion as she reaches for my hand.
Therese: “I wondered what happened to you. After you quit coming, I thought, well, one of these days he will walk in.”
Me: “Thank you.”
Therese: “I thought you moved away. I have a son that moved out to Montana. He bought 20 acres and built a house.”
Me: “You’ve had a birthday since I last saw you. I am so glad to see you are doing well.”
Therese was better, more lucid than when I left in early December. Must have changed meds. She was not as confused.
Me: “How is your foot?”
Therese: “If I could get this leg walking, I would go back anytime. Had I not fallen, I would still be there. And it was such a simple fall.”
Me: “Isn’t it crazy how a small thing can change your life?”
I pushed her out to a table eat lunch.
Feb 1, 2025
Me “I don’t know how much time God gives either one of us, but we should take advantage of the time we have. And seeing you is an important part of my life. I love seeing you; it fills something within me. As long as God lets me, I’ll keep doing it.”
Me: “I would rather talk about Christ than about anyone or anything else. But photography has always been the door. The apostle Paul made tents, photography has been my tent-making. Photography and writing is what I do, but it’s not who I am. “
I reassured Therese that her life had been important and one of service.
Me: “You’ve had a lovely life and you have a lovely life now. Every day, we should thank God that we have what we have.”
Therese: “Yes.” She whispers.
Her voice is faint. I am holding her hand and move very close to hear.
Me: “You raised smart and loving children and now you have me to balance that out.”
She laughs.
Therese: “What they did on their own, was their own.”
Me: “The way people stay positive, whatever happens in their life, they take it in stride. I can’t change it so I am going to be thankful and I am going to deal with whatever I have.”
Tears in her eyes, she confesses, not expressing her emotions to her children was one of the few things she said she regretted in her long life.
Therese: “Sometimes that’s hard because you can’t do anything about it.”
Me: “Worrying about it doesn’t change one thing.”
Me: “I think we should have a prayer that God will help both of us.”
Me: “It’s hard,” thinking about the past. It’s hard to accept it. But you can’t do anything about it except to be patient and loving.”
Therese: “I’m glad you came back.”
Tears are filling my eyes.
Me: “I am glad I came back, too.”
Me: “Isn’t love a wonderful thing?”
Therese: “It helps me not be depressed.”
Me: “I am glad. If I can help you not be depressed, I want to do that. Honey, I will come and do whatever I can.”
Feb 24, 2025
Me: Good afternoon.” I call out as I enter her room.
Me: Are you decent?”
Therese: “No, you can’t come in yet. I have no makeup on yet.” She is a wheelchair in the bathroom putting on her makeup. An aid comes in to help.
Me: “The sun is shining here, a beautiful sun.”
Me: “I didn’t make one picture yet today.” I reach for my camera.
Therese: “No, it’s not worth it today. I don’t feel like I look very good today.” She laughs.
Me: “If you don’t feel comfortable, I won’t do it today.” I put the camera down.
Me: “But when I see you, it will make me in a better mood.”
Therese: “Oh sure.” She rolls her eyes sarcastically.
Therese: “I thought I would get a call from you on Valentines Day?”
Me: “I would have called but then all of your friends would have thought you had a boyfriend.”
Me: “Actually, I wanted to come see you on Valentine’s Day.” She looks up at me earnestly, a little disappointed.
Therese: “I thought maybe you would come by.”
Therese: “I thought you wouldn’t come back since It didn’t go so well last time at lunch. I don’t know why they wouldn’t let you eat.”
Me: “No, I wanted to come see you; I haven’t abandoned you yet.”
“Yet.” She laughs
Me: “You are not rid of me yet.”
Therese: “That’s nice.”
Me: Besides, my wife doesn’t mind if I have a second Valentine.”
Therese: “What did you get her for Valentine’s Day?”
Therese: “She must be very understanding.”
March 1, 2025
Me: Why did you get disgusted? I just can’t help it.
Therese: “I can’t go up to mass. A virus won’t let people gather.”
Therese: “Any News?”
Me: “I went to Wisconsin last night to a lacrosse game. It was freezing. I got home at 11pm.”
Me: “I see you are wearing blue and purple, your favorite colors.”
Therese: “One of the aids said my voice sounds sassy. So I said, sorry, I won’t talk.”
Therese: “I never sound sassy. My voice is my voice, but it’s getting lesser and lesser.”
Me: “Today it is 26 degrees. Yesterday it was up to 50.”
Me: “What do you remember about your mother?”
Therese: “Working. I was 21 when I got married and I don’t remember the funeral.”
“I can’t remember my mother ever giving me a kiss. It was a time, and some families were just that way. Some showed emotion and some didn’t.”
Therese: “We never, ever said I love you.”
Me: Not your mother or father?”
Theres: “Nope.”
Me: “Do you wish they would have?”
Therese: “Oh yes.”
Me: “I am sure Ray told you he loved you.”
Me: “I was at least 40 years old before my dad ever told me he loved me, and that was because I told him. Otherwise, he might never have said it to me.”
Therese: “We never said that.”
Me: “You felt loved, didn’t you?”
Therese: “We all got along. We didn’t fight with each other or anything like that.”
Me: The light on you is so pretty right now.”
May 29, 2025
Therese had a bad fall the left a gash above her right eye that was now about healed. But she was clearly beginning to fail and I feared I might not see her again. I was to going out of town to a photography workshop in Minneapolis and would not be back until April 5th. When I called to check on Therese, Bec informed me that her mother had passed on April 3rd. While sometimes finding time to drive to Dubuque and see Therese was difficult, I cried, knowing I would miss her and our weekly visits.
March 29, 2025, my last visit with my friend.
Some final thoughts
It took six months before Therese felt comfortable telling me she loved me. “I wasn’t raised that way, nobody showed emotion in my family. We loved each other but didn’t say it,” she said to more than once. He eyes filling, she confessed, not expressing her emotions to her children was one of the few things she said she regretted in her long life.
It took six months before Therese felt comfortable telling me she loved me. “I wasn’t raised that way, nobody showed emotion in my family. We loved each other but didn’t say it,” she said to more than once. He eyes filling, she confessed, not expressing her emotions to her children was one of the few things she said she regretted in her long life.
Knowing how much she believed in “proper” dress, I wore a suit jacket and tie to her funeral. I am confident she would be pleased.
Therese Reicher, a lovely lady. Jan 4, 1927- April 3, 2025
Some photographers find their greatest joy and even purpose in documenting nature or wildlife or exotic places. Others are drawn to portraiture.
I am drawn to story-telling moments of love and support.
This past week, while photographing two Clarke University lacrosse games, I witnessed a painful, yet beautiful scene after a crushing loss.
As the disappointed team walked past, up a small incline to the makeshift locker room, a father, son and friend collapsed at the edge of the gravel and grass, together in sorrow.
2025 Copyright photo by Dave LaBelle
Moved by the emotional support of the father, but unaware of the depth of the pain, I made five or six pictures.
Later that evening, I learned there was more to the picture than meets the eye. Sophomore Logan Dedrick’s grandfather had died the night before, and he had just been told.
I called and talked with Logan’s father, Rick Dedrick, the next day.
“We didn’t want him to be alone when he learned of his grandfather’s passing,” said Dedrick.
Dedrick, who had traveled several hundred miles, along with his sister, to watch his son play two out-of-state lacrosse games, didn’t want to tell Logan his grandfather had died, not before an important game that would likely determine whether or not the team would make the playoffs.
Then, after the game, which the team lost, Dedrick asked Logan’s best friend and teammate, Xavier Howard, to join him in breaking the news to his son.
“Logan and X (Xavier) are really close, so I pulled him aside and said, hey bud, I am going to need you here,” shared Dedrick.
“He’s my little brother, I got it,” X assured.
“It was emotional, and I had to tell him right then and there,” said Dedrick. “There is no good time to really tell stuff like that. He broke down. He was hurt, obviously.”
Dedrick said he believes people need healing sometimes, and sharing pictures like this helps other people.
I met Mary Rettmann in July of 2011 while conducting a photography workshop in Chanute, Kansas with students from Kent State.
Driving one of those long, dusty country roads, I spotted her sitting on her front porch near Altoona, Kansas. Her weathered face looked as if it belonged on a Kansas magazine cover.
Mary Rettmann on her farm porch in 2011.
I stopped and talked with Mary and shared that I once worked for the Chanute Tribune many years earlier and was now teaching in Ohio. I learned she had retired after working 27 years as postmaster for the small Altoona town, where I made one of my more memorable pictures in 1979 of a 4th of July baby contest. She shared that her husband of 56 years, Charles, passed in 2008 at the age of 90 and she had lived alone on the farm since with no plans of leaving. Mary also told me she had two grown children, a son in Chanute and daughter in Texas. I met Glenn, two years younger than me, later that week.
We talked nearly an hour and the I asked if I could make a few pictures of her. Though she clearly wasn’t someone who liked a lot of attention, she agreed. I made sure to send her some of my favorites along with a letter when I returned to Ohio.
We became immediate long-distance friends. And for the next 12 years, I would call her at least once a year, near or on her May 29th birthday. She also she called and wrote to me on several occasions. I also made sure to visit her anytime I was in Kansas and even brought my youngest son, Henry, to meet her and we spent the afternoon with her in mid-May of 2021, two weeks before her 89th birthday. Sadly, her son Glenn, an important support, had passed away in March of 2020.
Mary in 2021, about two weeks before her 89th birthday.
Last year, in Kansas while in Wichita for a photography workshop, I decided to make the 100-mile trip to Altoona before heading to Atchison, Kansas to photograph a lacrosse meet. It was a bit out of the way, but it had been a year since I had seen or talked with Mary. And since I had forgotten to call her on her 90th birthday, I was determined to surprise her.
During my last visit with Mary, she said she hoped to live out her last years on the farm.
When I arrived, her car wasn’t under the small carport and she was nowhere around. I knocked several times, loudly. I figured she probably went to town. So, as I had done times, I sat on the porch and enjoyed the sunshine and a soft breeze and waited. After nearly an hour, I decided to leave her a note. About then, I heard a tractor coming up the gravel road and watched it turn into Mary’s yard. A neighbor, a young woman was driving, so I flagged her down. She shut off the machine and climbed down.
I told her my name and said I had come to see Mary, something I periodically did when I was in Kansas. Is she around, maybe in town? I don’t see her car.”
“Mary died last year,” the neighbor advised. “She died at home, the way she wanted it.”
My heart dropped.
I guess foolishly convinced myself she would always be there.
I miss Mary. Even though we usually only talked once a year, we had some deep and meaningful conversations. We talked about God and faith, government, and how the fast-paced world was changing and not for the better. She reminded me how she used to take long walks along the endless country road near her house, but it had become too dangerous now with too many vehicles speeding past.
She was content with her life, still taking a daily walk across the fields of her property. One of her wishes she expressed to me was to stay home and die on the farm and not be put in a nursing facility. Thankfully, God granted her wish.
Mary is one of a dozen or so widowed woman I have befriended and photographed thru the years. I have counted each as a dear friend, and I believe each would agree.
My wife says I am forever drawn to older women, especially those who would be about the age of my mother. This can be confusing to their families. They often wonder what my motives are. But if they knew my heart, they would know my motives have never changed and my intentions are pure. I want nothing but to be of comfort. Losing my mother, who was also from Kansas, so early in life left a natural emptiness that leads me to want to care for women who have lost spouses or children. I believe some of these women have seen me as a surrogate son, especially if they had lost a child. I am sure psychology has a long name for this.
The last time I photographed Mary two weeks before her 89th birthday.
A happy surprise came when searching Mary’s obituary, the accompanying photograph was one of the last pictures I made of her more than a year earlier.
I felt honored.
A few small serendipitous facts: Mary’s husband was named Charles, same as my father. Her mother was named Ruth, my mother was Jeannetta Ruth, from Kansas. And Mary’s parents were married in 1951, the year I was born.
This holiday season I can’t think of no better gift to offer than to share a few words and pictures about a young man I met shortly after moving to Iowa nearly three years ago.
Jake Wagner turned 40 in November, a mile marker his parents and siblings were not sure he would ever reach when he was born in 1984.
Always up for a party, a joyful Jake enjoys himself during a St. Patricks’s Day Parade.
Jake was born with Down Syndrome.
Intelligent, loving and caring, he embodies the pure unpretentious joy I hunger to document and, more importantly, imitate. He is the greatest gift, the living Christmas card that brings my joy beyond description.
His mother, Betty, shared, “He is such a breath of fresh air. He is such a blessing. He had been making the world a better place since 1984.”
Jake salutes his parents and fans from the winners’s platform during state Special Olympics competition.Jake the athlete
Holding his son’s hand, Jakes father, Nick, agreed.
“He is a very loving son. He knows when you need a hug, too. He’s the best boy a father could have.”
Jake with his father Nick, who recently tuned 80, on Father’s Day.
Of the thousands I have photographed, few, if any, cause my heart to smile more than Jake.
What a wonderful world it would be each of us had his loving heart and kind disposition.
When Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come to me, for such is the Kingdom of God,” I’m confident he had people like Jake in mind.
Most of my life I have been a teacher and a documentary photographer, which means I photograph real people living real life. I abhor AI and the artificial images created by it.
Recently, at my dear sister Fayemarie’s request, I officiated funeral services for my brother-in-law Jules David Gosseaux in McAllen, Texas.
From the time I met Jules, after his stroke in 2003, I began documenting their relationship.
I asked Jules several times if he felt comfortable with me photographing him and he always assured me it was fine and never asked me not to make pictures, regardless of the environment.
David LaBelle 2024
A little background
My sister and Jules dated a year and planned to be married. “I fell in love with him and felt I couldn’t live without him. He treated me like a princess,” she told me.
Fayemarie and Jules in 2003
Then Jules suffered a devastating stroke that paralyzed his right side. Against the advice of many, my sister went forward with the wedding because she loved the man, and because she believed it was the right thing to do. They were married one year later in Jan, 2004.
The married couple 2004
Fayemarie’s 70th birthday party
Relationships can be complicated, especially marriages where one is physically dependent on the other. I have often thought about how difficult it must have been for Jules, a businessman who lived in the fast lane, as if dependent on no one. Always controlling, the stroke forced him to make some serious life adjustments. He had to learn to depend on others, especially his wife, to change him, shave him, take him to the bathroom, drive him and carry and push his wheelchair. It must have tough.
D
And I have often considered and admired what my sister endured for 21 years. While both sacrificed in the marriage, as it should be, my sister, a still young and attractive flight attendant who absolutely loved her job, gave up flying and family in California, because that is what Jules insisted on. Though caring for her husband was a full-time job, even with the additional help of other caregivers, they had an active life, traveling the world, often on cruises. But eventually, after years of lifting her husband, my sister developed her own injuries, back issues, knee surgeries, etc. Caregivers were needed more often.
While some people are blessed with friends they’ve known since childhood, others make new friends in the twilight of life. Such is the case for Betty “Bessie” Helmrichs, 101, and Mercedes “Mickey” Schloss, 99, residents of a long-term care facility in Manchester, Iowa. Following is an edited version of the story published in the Manchester Press recently.
Left, Betty “Bessie” Helmrichs, 101, and Mercedes “Mickey” Schloss, 99, arriving for breakfast. “Good morning, Sunshine,” Mickey offers her friend.
When 99-year-old Schloss left her home, family and friends in Strawberry Point and moved into the Good Neighbor Home in Manchester in July 2023, it was an adjustment. But shortly after the move, she met another resident who would become a close friend beyond her wildest imagination.
“She’s the greatest,” Mickey said. “I don’t know what I would do without her, I really don’t.”
Mercedes “Mickey” Schloss, 99.
Betty “Bessie” Helmrichs, 101
Bessie feels the same.
“She just tells me, ‘I can’t do without you,’ but it is so comfortable in a facility to have a friend where we can go with each other and then discuss whatever we heard when we were at a meeting.”
Bessie said the friendship began when, “She sat at my table first, opposite me. She seemed to gravitate towards me. I couldn’t see her yet. I have macular degeneration. I can’t see.”
“Breakfast, dinner and supper, she’s always at my table. We solve all the world’s problems.”
The two soon realized they had a lot in common. Both had lost husbands, both had children and both had a faith in God, even though they worship differently and do not attend church services together.
“We think a lot alike. We’re both unselfish. We’re not anxious. We both like to please other people,” Bessie said, before continuing. “And that’s when you’re happier, when you get away from thinking about me and think about Christ.”
“She’s Catholic, and that wouldn’t bother me to go to the Catholic. I can go to any church and worship; I go to Stone Church, it’s kind of a Baptist church,” Bessie said. “I raised my children Lutheran, but I don’t belong to any church now. I belong to the Lord, not the church. I’m not hugging my denomination. I have a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
In just over six months, the two have become almost inseparable.
Each morning, after dressing in their own room (Mickey has Bessie’s old room in a different wing) the pair meet at a nursing station and walk together to the dining area. They sit side by side at the same table for every meal — breakfast, dinner and supper.
Bessie gets her hair done before leaving to meet Mickey to walk to breakfast.Mickey waiting for her friend.With Mickey in front, the pair make their way to the dining room.
They used to walk together until Bessie, who loves to walk, was sidelined with a health issue. Now, Mickey keeps up an indoor walking routine alone — seven times back and forth down a long hallway.
“It’s Bessie’s count,” she said. “She teaches me so much, and she is not afraid to tell me. She tells me I am walking crooked, walk straight. She taught me my exercises, therapy couldn’t, but she could. She’s the greatest.”
Mickey making her daily walk without her friend.
Pushing her walker towards the dining room, Bessie in front of her friend Mickey, an aide teases, “Trouble is right behind you. There’s trouble one and trouble two.”
Finally arriving at their table for breakfast, Schloss leans over to her friend. “Good morning, sunshine.”
At the table where they met, they now have assigned seats next to each other.
Mickey insists her friendship with Bessie “means everything.”
“She is the nicest person in here. They don’t come nicer and I love her dearly,” she said. “I don’t want to lose her. Ever. I am 99 and she is 101 and what do you expect? When [death] comes, it comes. And we’re both ready. What else can you do? It’s up to the Lord.”
It’s a word we use loosely, often too casually, when referring to someone we know on Facebook or see in person from time to time, but know little about.
Bob Leigh, 84, is nine months older than Jerry Pape, 83, and the two have been friends most of their adult lives. In fact, Leigh married Pape’s first cousin.
Jerry Pape, left, and Bob Leigh in Texas.
“We’ve been helping each other ever since,” Leigh assured.
For 30 years, the Leigh and Pape families wintered together at the southern tip of Texas in a town called Harlingen, about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, between McAllen and Brownsville, and not too far from the Mexican border.
“Everything’s a lot cheaper here,” Pape said, while sitting on the porch of a motel costing him less than $30 a night. He added, “I also feel a lot better down here — the cold is hard on my knees.”
In past years, the couples would go fishing, golfing, shopping, dancing and visiting with other couples who came every year, many from Canada and Dubuque County.
Even after Pape’s wife, Ina, passed in 2009 and then Leigh’s wife, Grace, in 2019, the friends continued to make the winter pilgrimage.
“You start to know people; the same people come every year,” Pape said. “There’s a couple from Canada in room 111; they come down every year.”
“But of the group we used to hang around with,14 of them have passed.”
Now that Pape uses a cane, he doesn’t dance or golf anymore. When he and Leigh are not out sightseeing or shopping at flea markets, garage sales or thrift stores, Pape’s content to watch TV or sit in the sunshine in front of his room, while Leigh, a prolific dancer, is out dancing and listening to live music.
Jerry loves sitting in the sun and already has the tan to prove it.
“Bob makes me dinner every day over at his place (room 113),” said Pape, causing a proud smile to stretch across Leigh’s face.
Leigh’s menu that evening offered two choices. “Large shrimp — I have some horseradish and ketchup — or roast beef, salad and dressing, and red baked potatoes.”
Pape and Leigh have wintered in the same location for the past six or seven years, but unfortunately, like the other two motels where they stayed in the past, this one is sentenced to demolition. The small restaurant where they share breakfast each morning will also soon disappear.
The traveling pair looking up a few details a few days before heading south in 2024.
“All will be gone next year and become a car wash,” Pape said with both disappointment and surprise. “They got a car wash just down the street.”
Ever the planner, Leigh has already scouted and secured another motel for next winter, which will cost $1,000 a month. “And the rooms have a kitchenette,” he beamed.
Ever the server, Bob goes get Jerry a beer before coming back to make dinner at the motel.
“We’re just a couple of old fogies having a lot of fun,” Pape laughed.
During a recent conversation, both realized they will be buried less than 150 feet apart in Dyersville’s St. Francis Cemetery. So just as they were in life, they will still be close.
“Call me Jimmy G, baby,” Jim Gaul belted, while saluting with his left hand.
At every Special Olympics event there is usually one voice heard above the others, a voice of heightened enthusiasm and unparalleled support. That voice is often Jim Gaul.
“I know you,” Gaul says, cocking his head, squinting his eyes and pointing when he sees somebody he recognizes.
The second of 10 children born to Jerry and Joan Gaul, of Farley, Gaul has a genetic disease called Fragile X Syndrome, a leading cause of inherited disabilities like Autism. His brother Dave also has the disease.
I first met Gaul at a softball game in 2022. After traveling with him and other members of the Progress Special Olympics team to several regional and state competitions, Gaul caught my attention because of his unabashed support of other athletes, even those he was competing against. He joyfully congratulated everybody on their effort, win or lose, even members of teams who finished ahead of him.
“He is caring, big-hearted, interested in everyone and Jim gives 110 percent,” said Laurie Fallon, one of Gaul’s seven younger sisters and special education teacher at Western Dubuque High School in Iowa the past 20 years. “He loves sports, he loves the Hawkeyes, he loves competing. Even though he cares about other people — even those he is competing against — he is competitive,” she assured. At 65, he still competes in a variety of events including bowling and track and field.
“In middle school, everybody loved him,” Fallon offered. “And when he attended Western Dubuque High School, he was so enthusiastic and such a Bobcat fan some teachers and staff got together and decided to create a spirit award for anyone who would exhibit Bobcat spirit.”
No incident better illustrates Gaul’s love of competing more than a story Fallon shared about her big brother that occurred seven or eight years ago. “It was the first time I saw Jim really down to the point of being worried about him,” Fallen remembers. “He really didn’t feel well and couldn’t put words to it.” After Gaul seemed to be getting worse, Fallon and older sister Mary Jo Scott took their brother to the doctor where tests revealed he had a double hernia requiring surgery. But it was just two weeks before state competition for track and field and Gaul had qualified at the area competition, even though he wasn’t feeling good.
Fallon said, “When he came to after the surgery Jim said, ‘Doc, am I going to be able to run? I really want to run.’ The doctor (who had gotten to know Jim through Special Olympics) said, ‘Boy, Jimmy, I just don’t know. You had some pretty big things going on in here. That might be just a little too much.’ Jim started crying and said, ‘Please doc, I just want to run doc, I just want to run. Give me a chance.’”
The doctor explained they would do a follow up in a week, and he would decide then if Gaul would be allowed to compete.
During the follow up, Fallon said the doctor looked him over, and is internal stiches, and asked him how he was feeling. “Oh, I feel great, I feel great,” Gaul assured. “Can I run doc, can I run? I just want to run.”
At the time Fallon was his Special Olympic coach as well as his sister, and she promised the doctor she wouldn’t allow her brother to do anything that he couldn’t do. “And if he can walk this race, just so he can be involved, that would mean a lot to him.” “The doctor said, ‘ You’re his coach, you‘re his sister, you know him pretty well. He said, ‘Jimmy, I am going to give you the go ahead, but if it hurts at all, you can’t run, you’ll have to take it easy.’ “OK, doc, OK, I will, I will. I just want to run.’”
“We get down there and Jim is a little bit sore yet, but he gets up to that line and he is ready to go. I said, Jim if it hurts at all, you got to stop running and you got to walk.” ‘
OK, coach, OK, coach.’ He calls me coach even though I am his sister.
“He took off but he ran slow. It was a 100-meters and he ran right past a couple of people. And as he was running past them he put up his fingers, like I am going to do it, I am going to do it. When he got to that finish line he was so excited. I don’t know what place he got, but I know he got a medal that day.”
Fallon said she took a picture of her brother with his medal and sent it to his doctor. On the back of the picture she wrote that Jim wanted to let you know he ran his best race and he came back with a medal and he just appreciates all you did for him. The doctor told her later, “that just made my whole career worth it.”
Though Gaul is a playful kind of person and doesn’t get stressed out about all the things they do, Fallon said her brother is also very observant, sensitive and takes everything to heart. “If he knows that somebody else is worried about something, Jim will recognize that, and in a way, try to empathize with that person.”
Of the seven girls and three boys in the Gaul family, three have special needs, each with varying degrees of challenge. “Vicky was so typically normal to us, she struggled with learning disabilities, but she didn’t struggle like Jim or Dave,” Fallon said. “For us, they were just a part of everything we knew, and they shaped us. They taught us so many things without saying a word.”
Fallon concluded, saying, “If we could take these qualities that my siblings have — those qualities you see in so many other people and in Jim — his optimism, his joyfulness in life even in adversity — and if we could bottle that, and if we could give that to people in our world, if that could be the gift that we give people, our world would be a much better place. And that’s the truth. He has so many things that our world is lacking, especially right now with just everything going on… politics and world wars.”
I wrote a column about Thanksgiving for Ruralite Magazine in 2012, and then years later received a letter that brought tears. I am attaching both the original column and the most recent column published this month. I hope you enjoy this serendipitous story, and that each of you have a meaningful Thanksgiving.
Bridges and Angels 