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Show t i Kathleen Norris Says: All Yours for Nothing Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. "The fundamental essentials of food, shelter, love, home, books, light, water, wa-ter, safety from fear, we take calmly for granted." TAKEN FOR GRANTED Even the poorest Americans have much to be thankful for, compared to people in Europe and Asia. Such simple things as water and plain food, a tight roof and some kind of heat-, ing, are often difficult to obtain ob-tain over much of the war-devastated countries. Warm clothing cloth-ing is very scarce. Medicine is hard to get except where the Red Cross or some other agency agen-cy has a station. All sorts of plain, everday necessities are missing. It is particularly hard on women with young children. chil-dren. The story of a Polish woman wom-an is told in today's article. She had been accustomed to a luxury level of existence before be-fore the war. They had a fine apartment, a car, good furniture, furni-ture, money for travel and social so-cial events. The war changed all this. Her husband, brothers broth-ers and father are all dead . . . they starved. She managed to survive by begging and scavenging scav-enging in the ruined city. One child was born in a sheep barn. Now that hostilities have ceased, conditions are better, but there is still much suffering. suffer-ing. She has learned to appreciate appre-ciate ordinary things that all of us take for granted. en calling their children and laughing laugh-ing it seems to me that life is too beautiful to be borne. Now I can say of our enemies of yesterday, as my poor father did, dying, forgive them. They know not what they do!" This letter has made me see my own environment with new eyes, and has made me wonder how much we appreciate the miracles that are all about us. Sunsets and sunrises, sun-rises, the glory of spring, moonlit nights in summer, and the first timid tim-id flutter of snow, these are all ours, if we will but claim them. Clear cold water, a snug roof over our head, books to read, meals however how-ever plain to enjoy, a smooth bed at night and deep sleep let these things be taken away for a while, and we begin to know their value. Worry over Trifles. "If we can see one meal ahead for the children we feel rich," said a French woman a few years ago. "We look no further ahead than that." And here we Americans are, fussing fuss-ing about the cost of spring clothes, about summer plans, about the shortage of butter and mayonnaise, about the babies' college career in the 1960s, about the lost letter and the embarrassing invitation, about the slowness of the dry cleaners and the non-delivery of the Didy Wash. The fundamental essentials of food, shelter, love, home, books, light, water, safety from fear, we take calmly for granted. It is worry about the non-essentials that keeps us from ever seeing the breath-ta!-Ing beauty of sunrise, the light of cold winter sunlight on snow, the lilacs that begin to toss and blow in the spring wind. Our own quarrelsome, quarrel-some, complaining, discontented voices keep us from listening for Shakespeare's rain that whistles in the April wind, or sharing the immortal im-mortal wine of EmDy Dickenson's September. By KATHLEEN NORRIS SOME time ago our town sent crates and crates of clothing to stricken Europe. Probably your town did, too. We stripped our closets of everything warm and wearable that we could spare, and of some things we could not spare, for the sake of shivering women and babies ba-bies overseas. Our thanks come principally principal-ly in the consciousness of a good deed well done, and the knowledge that many a shaken, shak-en, forlorn mother is grateful grate-ful to the God to whom she prayed for help, and whose ministers we were privileged to be. But sometimes a little trickle of personal thanks creeps through, too, and such a tribute came to me this week from an unknown friend in Poland, whose small daughters are wearing my granddaughters' coats this winter. This woman lived in America for several years, and writes In good English. She has one room In an almost - desti(gyi.iuilding, windows win-dows have recently been put back, she says, and running water is only a few hundred feet away. "Water is such a miracle," says the letter. "And to have this whole quiet room to ourselves seems to us a miracle, too. Food is scarce, but thanks to the Quaker and the Red Cross it Is sure, and fear is gone. If you could know what it means not to be afraid! Kin Starved ta Death. "My husband, both brothers, my father, were starved to death, or died for the want of water. I hid with my children In the ruins of the city for many weeks Now all that Is over. Now we walk the streets freely, free-ly, we can talk, we can make friends. Now I can get up early and watch the sunrise, and stop in church for a few minutes. And now with spring beginning, what beauties on every handl We have a Jar of wild flowers, the new potatoes are coming along, soon we will have beans and cherries cher-ries every day some new delight. Someday, we say, we will live out on a farm, for the farms need hands, and I am familiar with dairy work. "In the old days," the letter concludes, con-cludes, "I wanted so much! My husband hus-band and I had a well-furnlshed fiat, a car; I could buy china and clothes, there were dinner parties and wedding feasts. How fast it ail vanished! Our home gone, our securities in the bank confiscated, strangers everywhere, my husband's hus-band's Job lost, himself a prisoner, and my dear father, who would so gladly have helped us, gone In his turn. There was no work and no help for me, the wife of a patriot; we begged, we starved, we crept out of sight. My younger child was born in a shed, with an old shepherd and sheep t6 keep us company in the bitter winter. "Now we are so rich! Every little new home that is being built or rehabilitated re-habilitated seems to belong to me. The moon, shining down through the old trees, the church-bells ringing, the newly-plowed field how beautiful beauti-ful they all are! When I see work and restoration beginning again, and lights In houses, and hear worn- j "The beauty of sunlight on snow." |