This one's more for grown-ups

The Offered Hand of Ferdinand
A Little Story for Big People by
Joaquin Torrans


Ferdinand was a loving man,
Gentle, kind, intelligent, refined.

The type of man to whom people love to speak
Quiet without being meek
One whose counsel you might seek
For his outlook was never bleak.

He always tried to do his best
And he never got much rest
Because people always needed him so
There always was another place where he had to go
And some favor he had to do
He helped me once, when I had the flu
And if asked, I’m sure he’d help you, too.

Ferdinand was big and strong
He can tote very heavy things along
He can get tight lids off of jars
And fix a lot of stuff on cars
Reach things on the highest shelf
Hardly ever thinks of himself.

I remember well a tale I once heard Ferd tell
About how he met his tax-accountant
While climbing a great tall mountain
This CPA had lost his belay
His rope had gone astray
And so he hanged there swinging to and fray
Shouting, “Huloo! Halay! Someone help me, I pray!”
He was a funny sight, sighed Ferd, hanging there that way
Might’ve been hanging there still today, had Ferd not heard him cry, “Hey! “Can anybody hear what I say?”
Ferd called back, “I hear you, man.
“I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
He tightened his boots, then spat on his hands
And scaled the great rock without any chalk
Without even a stop, until he reached the outcrop
Where he hefted the rope with a fisherman’s manner
And caught himself a financial planner


Most of his stories are something like that
There’s a someone needs a something, wherever he’s at.

People often ask him to help them move
And not that he has anything to prove
But it’s easier on his back to just carry the sofa by himself
And the bed, and the desk, and the bookcase—he just doesn’t need help
In point of fact, the only time that his back gets hurt
Is when shorter folks have insisted that he should let them help him lift it.
They put him at an awkward angle while they try to wrangle
What he could have more easily shouldered on his own
Not realizing it was their “help” that would get his back thrown.
But he’s too polite to refuse all their assistance
And he knew their guilt’s persistence
Would not go abated, watching him do all the work unaided.
And so he stoops to, metaphorically, lend his hand.
When short folks command, “Let me help!”
He just says, “Thank you, man.”

Even with all of his friends
And all of the duties he attends
Ferdinand was a lonely man
Full of love, but sans woman

Until one day he saw a foot.
A foot in a shoe that beckoned him closer for a better view.
The foot was connected to a leg
The leg was connected to a torso
The torso was connected to her beautiful face, which was made the more so
Because she looked back at him with the same sense of wonder
That had made him blunder over in the first place, a few seconds ago.

Was this “love at first sight?”
Maybe so.
Still, love is something that has to grow;
It becomes stronger with someone you get to know.
The two of them began to spend as much time together as peas in a pod
Or straws in a broom
And their love began to bloom.

Years went by; time seemed to fly.
Ferd couldn’t have been a happier guy.
But sadly, love’s bloom, like any flower, also will die.

All of his life, Ferd had helped others
They called and they shouted, and pleaded, “Little help, brother?”
Ferd always pitched in, put his back to the wind
Set his big muscles to task wearing a big goofy grin.
But this one time Ferdinand offered his hand
And
She wouldn’t take it.
Said she wanted to make it
All on her own,
And she left Ferd all alone.
That’s why he’s the most inconsolable man I’ve ever known.

Who reaches out to the helping hand?
Those in need.
But who loves the helping man?
Who indeed.

There’s one thing I’ve learned from Ferdinand:
Rely on yourself.
No one else gives damn.
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