The Ziti is gone but I still have some green beans

   Crazy title, isn't it? But its something my family and close friends would understand. I can laugh about it now but it wasn't so funny almost a year ago. Let me start at the beginning.

   On June 19th 2006, my grandson JD was born by emergency C-section. The prognosis was not good. He had complications from having a problem related to the RH factor. Basically, the doctor screwed up. Most of his red blood cells and been attacked. He was severly anemic, his billirubin levels were high, and he had numerous other problems. We were told that he might not make it. It was touch and go in the beginning.

   The little guy was a fighter. Despite his many problems, he recovered quite nicely. It was a long week after his birth before anyone could hold him but  he was only in the NICU ( Neonatal intensive care unit) for just over three weeks. A true miracle in my opinion.

   Even after he came home, he required to be seen by many specialists at a hospital about an hour away. Sometimes we went up there three times a week. The cost of gas, tolls and hospital parking drained the families finances. So I decided to put on a benefit dinner to help them out. We planned it for October 8th 2006.

   It was alot of work trying to set this benefit dinner up. We made our own ads and put them up all around town, had an article written in our local paper, and I was even on a local radio station to talk about it. We were so excited. Most benefits draw about 400 people so I planned for 500. We made table decorations,a Kiss tree and a wishing well. We got many local businesses to donate prizes for our raffles. I had a lot of help from my family and friends. I couldn't have done it without them.

   We spent a lot of money on this benefit dinner, but I was hoping for a big turn out to help my son and his family. But thats not the way it ended up. Not many people showed up. We sold about 30 dinners a far cry from the 500 we expected. I have no idea why. It made me a bit bitter. I had heard of other benefit dinners having great success. They had been dinners for people with cancer. Not many people understood what my grandson had so I think thats part of the reason why not many came to ours.

   Towards the end of the evening, I couldn't take it anymore and I went outside and started to bawl my eyes out. My three great nieces and one great nephew had gone out front with signs they made and started yelling at passing cars to come to our dinner. I appreciated their efforts but I didn't think it would help. But a lady who had been out painting her house had heard the kids and she came over to see what was going on. I have no idea who that  lady was and she didn't know any of us. She was so touched by our story that she donated $500. My tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy. If it had not been for her, we wouldn't have had much of a profit.

    So, the end of a long day came but luckily we didn't cook all the food ahead of time. We split the cooked and uncooked food and the drinks. I got most of the unopened boxes of ziti and the unopened cans of green beans. You know where this is going now, don't you?

   So last night I cooked the last box of ziti that we got from the leftover benefit dinner. I still have a bunch of cans of green beans left. No one really likes them that much.

To see my grandson's webpage click here.