Chapter 4 - Joel Eastham and Louise Ralph & the house

Genrozt:  a gracious act that creates a joyful ache every time it is remembered


OPENING

Sometimes when Louise Ralph turns into her long driveway she remembers a station wagon jammed with kids stuck in the blowing snow, maybe halfway to the large, white house. Then she smiles. Every time.

When my friend Joanie heard about this book and about simple, powerful generosities she told me I absolutely had to talk with her Mom. Which is how Emmett, Liam and I visited Louise in Springfield, Illinois last summer and learned how Joel's house chose the large Ralph family almost forty winters ago.


CLOSING

Before we left Louise last July, we took a few photos to remember her smile and the house linking two families, and the tangible proof that easy generosities are all around us. For the wide shot of the house, Emmett and Liam walked with me down the yard while Louise sat on the top step at the front of her house.

I think of Joel's house as a very real player in the Eastham and Ralph story.

I imagine it watching in hopefulness for Louise's family that winter day, watching for a family of eleven. The exact number of big front windows still framing Louise on her porch.