Theresa Lewis

Several years ago, on voting day, our electoral station was in St. Bernard’s Catholic school in a Montreal suburb. The waiting line was long and tedious. With nothing better to do, I was gawking around at the school’s notice board that hung on the wall. It had posted up-coming events and had numerous drawings by very young children displayed for all to see. It wasn’t what I would call entertaining, but out of boredom, I read every notice of parent and teacher meetings, every notice of up-coming sports events and I stared at every photo of groups of children.

When I looked the other way, I noticed a very large picture of Jesus in the olive garden. I had always loved that image of Jesus because of the serenity on the face of Jesus. It is an image that has warmed my soul ever since I was a child and still does to this very day.

Once voting was done, I went home and noticed that the mailman had passed. He had left me a stack of mail that day. I was tired and didn’t want to deal with bills at that time. I wished that I had a special place to put the bills until I had the time to go through them. Oh, well, I didn’t, so I tossed them on the buffet in the dining room as usual with the intention of dealing with all of it after supper.

For many, many years, I had always used ugly salt and pepper shakers that I got from Tupperware. They were huge and ugly and did nothing to compliment a table set for a meal, but they were all I had. In a passing thought, I wished I had a small cute set of shakers that had some character.

A few days earlier, I had been to visit a friend who had a beautiful cut crystal bowl that looked as though someone had squished it until it was flattened on two sides. I thought it was so unique and the beauty of it really caught my eye.

After supper that night, a neighbour asked me if I would help her to hang wallpaper in her hall and foyer. I readily agreed. The only thing I had to do for myself that evening was process the mail and that was something that could easily wait for another day as far as I was concerned.

Together we worked until after ten o’clock. When we were done, the wallpaper looked great and it gave a fresh lift to her hall and foyer. We celebrated with a cup of tea then I went home.

About forty minutes later, my doorbell rang. It was the lady that I had helped hang the wallpaper. She had a shopping bag with her. She pulled out a box that contained a squished crystal bowl like I had seen in someone else’s house two days earlier. She gave it to me. I was blown away. She worked for a large department store and she said she often bought things on sale. Sometimes, she would forget and she would buy another one. This was the case. She said she had two of them and could only use one. Even though I had helped her, I neither sought nor wanted any compensation. She insisted that I take it. My hands were actually trembling when I accepted it from her. I was delighted to have such a beautiful ornament.

She said she had another gift for me and she pulled out a highly polished wooden stand that would sit on a dinner table. You’re not going to believe this, but it was a napkin holder that had two depressions carved into either end of it to hold the tiny glass barrel salt and pepper shakers. Oh, my God, these were all passing thoughts with me that I had not shared with anyone. When I accepted that gift, I turned it around and noticed the same picture of Jesus in the olive garden. It totally unnerved me and I almost dropped it. Who would put a picture of Jesus on a holder for napkins and salt and pepper shakers? Yet, there it was in my hands.

I never used the napkin holder for napkins, but I used it every day for unprocessed mail. My four passing thoughts were received by this woman and passed onto me as gifts. How strange was that?

The End