My visits with Eleanor Josaitis find her engaging with a firm grip of my hand, a wink, and, a smile.
That's a lot from one who is battling cancer each day, and, the pain that pokes deep within her soul.
Take today, for example: I asked the co-founder of the civil and human rights organization, Focus:HOPE, she founded in 1968 with the late Father William Cunningham, how she was feeling.
Unlike the past Wednesdays I was there when she replied, "Frustrated," and "Fed up," this day she seemed more hopeful, saying, "Let's go home."
Eleanor wants to go home to her family, to Focus:Hope, to . . .
One can only imagine if she's also thinking of going home to that lasting place prepared for those who love God.
Frank Kubiak, manager of the Food Resource Center of Focus:HOPE took time off and joined Eleanor and me.
We shared our frsutrations with church leadership, the "different wind" winding around a fledgling institution, and, Kubiak's visit to the Secretary of Agriculture in Wasington, D.C.
last Thursday.
That was the same day the Neighborhood Service Organization honored Eleanor Josaitis with
an award for her decades of service to the community.
We shared some home-made pumpkin, pecan and carrot cake with tea, with a few smiles and laughs amid Eleanor's wincing and obvious pain.
My mother said her cancer of the colon was like two knives cutting at her, and, Eleanor nodded when I asked her if that was true for her own ordeal also. She nodded again.
My phone vibrated and I excused myself. It was my cousin wanting to plan the Thursday funeral liturgy for her father, Walter Romanik of Cheboygan, MI.
After concluding the call, we prayed God's blessings, as Frank was about to read a page from Eleanor's favorite devotional while I exited with a wave and "Good-bye."
Powerful presence and present Eleanor is to many.
Until my next visit, I sadly processed multiple feelings fleeing the nursing center. Dominant was
a heavy sadness balanced with memories of much fruit in this great woman's life.
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