As an insurance agent, I have to visit my clients at their homes to collect their insurance fees. I had an elderly client named Ms. Gooden. She is a sweet lady and always does her best to keep me at her home as long as she can. One day as I was leaving, she told me about the flowers she wished she had in her yard. I asked her, “If you got the chance to have flowers, what colors would you want?” She answered me in a sad voice that any color would be beautiful to her.

One day when I knew she had a doctor’s appointment, I went to a flower shop and bought many colorful and beautiful flowers. I went to her home and planted them in an area of the yard so that when she looked out the window she would see beautiful flowers.

The next time I visited her home she asked if I knew anything about the flowers. I told her no and we both smiled at each other. While I was sitting there she began to tell me about all of the beautiful butterflies that came to visit her new flower garden and about the bees which were busy working on the flowers. Some bees even fought with others over the flowers.

“I don’t know why they fight,” she said, “There are enough flowers for all of them.” She wouldn’t stop talking about this new-found joy in her life.

As I was about to leave I noticed she was so busy watching over her new garden and its visitors that she didn’t even try to keep me from leaving. I realized at that moment that Ms. Gooden had been suffering from what a lot of elderly people suffer from— she was just lonely. The few dollars spent on the flowers were well worth the joy those flowers brought to her face and to my heart.

The meaning of the word “volunteer” may be a little different in different countries, but it usually means one who offers his or her “services”. There are many different ways in which people can volunteer, such as taking care of sick people, working in homes for homeless children, and picking up garbage(垃圾) from beaches and parks. Volunteers may work within their own countries or in other countries. They are often people with a strong wish to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. Volunteers don’t expect any kind of pay.

At the root of volunteering is the idea that one person may have the ability to offer services that can help other people. Tracy, a good friend of mine, however, recently came back from India with a new idea of what being a volunteer means. She worked for two and a half weeks in one of Mother Teresa’s homes in Calcutta(加尔各答). The following is her story.