I need to go to the clinic today. But I decided to post a memory about a visit to the clinic when I was a little girl.
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Grampa Oshiro (Daddy's father) seemed like such a kind, gentle old soul. But I realized nothing seemed to faze him because he was probably made of steel. I still remember the summer he and Gramma visited and we were out wading in the Yaka Beach--well, us girls still couldn't swim, but Daddy and Grampa could. You'd think my Dad would go swim, but an old man like Grampa would stay in the shallow water, right?
Nothing doing. Grampa was out where the water was way over our heads, probably not with the powerful strokes of a younger man, but comfortably pushing it around under him as he made his way through it, like he owned the place.
He came back only when he heard one of us--me--yell I thought I was stung by a jellyfish. We had seen a lot of them bobbing around a few days before, and they hadn't bothered us. But today, when they submerged and you couldn't see them, if you bumped into them, well, you felt the smart whip of their tentacles...
My mother rushed me to the military clinic nearby where the wound was treated with antiseptic and the best modern medicine...but it ended up getting swollen, infected, and I wore an ugly scabby scar above my knee for years.
Grampa, however, went swimming everyday for a week after that, and when asked if he never bumped into jellyfish, he said matter-of-factly:
"All the time. But whenever we boys got stung by jellyfish, we just scooped the wet sand from the bottom and held the dirt on the sting. It draws out the poison, and you can go on swimming after that."
He's been doing this for 70 years? Mommy shook her head, acknowledging, "I guess God gives some things in natural creation--like mud---modern technology just can't match."
