Sunny Side Up, August 31, 2005 � 2005, Kathleen Gibson What goes around, comes around "We can't take it with us," we decided. The antique dresser in our bedroom weighed a ton and we'd agreed to travel light on that move from Vancouver Island to Ontario. Besides, bouncing for three thousand miles in the back of a truck seemed cruel and unusual treatment for the dignified relic. Enough to get the SPCA after us - Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Antiques - if there were such an institution. I put an ad in the paper. The first respondents bought it on the spot. I watched them ease it down our narrow hall and out the front door. Regret nibbled at my spirit, showed up on my face. "Are you sure you want to part with this?" the young woman asked. I nodded. They'll be good owners, I thought, watching their truck pull away. They hadn't even quibbled over the price. Before I met that dresser, I'd never appreciated antiques. As a young bride, I'd wandered into an antique store near our home and found it in a dim corner, its candle stands empty. Hand carving and side pillars adorned its front. It choked me up, it looked so lonely. The Preacher and I were in our first church at the time, in Richmond, B.C. Earning one hundred dollars a week - gross. We'd saved up enough to buy a dirt-cheap car, but there was barely money for food and gas, let alone pricey antique dressers. Not only that, we'd just become parents. "I really like this dresser," I blurted. The owner seemed pleased by my pleasure - saddened when I told her I couldn't afford it. I don't know where I found the chutzpah, but I offered to work for her until it was paid off. Surprised, she made a counter offer. Could I sew? Working from home, I subsequently designed and sewed enough costumes for her doll museum to pay for the dresser and several more antiques. I remembered all that six years later, as the dresser disappeared, securely roped into the back of the new owners' truck. And I've thought about that black walnut bureau every time I've bought, sold, or moved a dresser since then - something I did this very week, in my house two provinces over and two decades later. Know what I think about most? Not the dresser. Nor its voyage from England two turns of the century ago. Nor the contents that doubtless once inhabited its precisely dovetailed drawers - pocketwatches, corsets, monacles and white gloves, perhaps. No, I remember the woman in the antique store. Most merchants wouldn't have given me a fig's minute. She took a risk, and the ripples of her kindness are still spreading - you're reading one. I found her two years ago and thanked her. She's retired now and my words seemed to encourage her. The book of Ecclesiastes (11:1) says this: Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later. It's true: what goes around, comes around eventually. What are you sending around? Respond Home |