This week I received a priceless gift from a woman I’ve never met.
Gretchen attends the same church I attended as a teenager. I haven’t been back to that church since I was young, but regardless of how many churches I’ve attended since that time, that small old church was always “The” church. The one that changed my life, saved my life, it’s where I found God.
Gretchen sent me an old hymnal from the church. It was worn and well used, the pages fell open to favorite hymns that had been sung most often. I held the hymnal in my hands and wondered if it was the exact same hymnal I’d held so many Sunday mornings so long ago. How many of my friends in the church had held it, how many hundreds or thousands of services had it provided songs of praise and comfort?
To other people it would just seem like an old hymnal...but to me it was a treasure. Who knows how many years Gretchen had it sitting on a shelf and then one day on an impulse she mailed it to me and touched my heart with almost forgotten memories.
It made me wonder if I had some things in my house that no longer meant a lot to me but they might mean the world to someone else. I began to search my house and soon I realized I had things I needed to give away.
I had a shoebox filled with letters from my aunt who had passed away ten years ago. I read them again, my aunt wrote wonderful letters about her garden, canning tomatoes, making a dress, going to church. She wrote about her neighbors she wrote about little things, little pieces of her daily life. I mailed the box of letters to her daughter. I wrote a note saying I’d loved her mother and I’d kept many of the letters she’d sent me over the years and I thought she might like to have them. My cousin was so happy to see her mother’s handwriting again, to share her mother’s days and look at the photos.
I had an antique beaded purse from the 1920s someone had given me years ago. I’d never used it, it seemed too good, I was afraid I might damage it or lose it, and I never went anyplace fancy enough to carry such a purse so it had stayed in a box. I gave it to a lady in my church who liked dressing up and wearing scarves and jewelry, she always dresses like she’s going to a party. I thought she’d appreciate the beauty and history of the purse and I felt she’d use it and I knew I never would. She absolutely loved the purse, I see her carrying it to church often and I’m glad she’s using it and enjoying it. That is so much better than saving it in a box in the top of my closet. I sorted through photo albums and sent many of the photos to friends and relatives. Most of the photos were at least twenty years old and they brought back special memories to people.
I had some poetry books that I’d enjoyed but I hadn’t read them in a long time and who knows when I’d have ever read them again. I tied a ribbon around them and gave them to a retired school teacher I know. She said she’d always loved poetry and one of the things she promised herself when she retired was that she’d read the classics she’d loved when she was a girl.
Each gift I gave made someone so happy that it pushed me to find other gifts. None of the gifts cost me any money, they were things I already owned, but I couldn’t have bought better gifts at any price.
It was such a good feeling, I was bringing smiles into other people’s lives…and bringing joy into my own life. I was having so much fun giving things away it was hard to stop. It was also nice to have my house looking less cluttered. Things that had been sitting on shelves gathering dust and things hidden in boxes in the top shelf of the closet were now being used and worn and enjoyed.
My heart felt lighter, it was amazing how easy it is to give someone something that makes them so happy…a shoebox of old letters, an old purse, some old books and some photos. Odds and ends of junk in one person’s house can become a treasure in someone else’s home.
Yesterday, my cousin sent me a photo of the two of us riding horses together when we were young. Just for a minute when I held that photo in my hands, I remembered that summer day when I was fourteen. It was nice to remember that day; it was nice to feel young again.
It was a treasure.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins. All her books are available from Indian Life. Check catalog on page 19.
