Coffee With Mo..

Each Christmas, ( and sometimes in-between) a memory comes back to me of a day long ago when times were hard and buying gifts at Christmas was a challenge. Struggle makes us more resourceful, even if we don’t like it at the time we are going through it. If you have never struggled, you may not understand the story quite the same way. By the way, This was 1980 something.

I hopped in the car one afternoon a week or so before Christmas & made the 4 mile trip to do my Christmas shopping. It was a rather short drive from Dares Beach to the shopping center in Pr Frederick Md, the little town in which I lived. I started at the $1 store to buy some gifts for my 2 young sons. , they were small and appreciated any toy that represented fun. I finished my shopping and proceeded to the check out line. I had a one hundred dollar bill in my purse or my pocket when I left home…that much I knew…(mom’s with 3 boys at home can sometimes get scattered and forgetful..lol) 

Well, I DID have the money, but at this moment in the very long Christmas Season check out line, it was not appearing anywhere. 

I began to feel a hot flush run through me as though I might pass out. I quickly left the check out line, parked my cart full of gifts and headed out the front door to the car. I searched every inch of the car and came up empty. Holding back the tears, I began to search under the car and all around it. 

A mans voice broke the silence, but I hadn’t heard what he said. I looked around and saw him sitting in a car a few spaces away from mine. What? I commented,  He repeated, “Did you lose something?” I stood there looking at him with one of those blank stares I tend to have, when I want to respond with a sarcastic come back, but find a way to “pause before speaking”.   I answered “yes”, and continued my search a few  more seconds. Feeling a bit frantic and thinking of no toys for Christmas, I really wanted to cry, but didn’t have time for that.

The man spoke up again, “What did you lose”.?  Now I am becoming irritated with this man who wants to make small talk while I am in panic mode. I thought he had gone. 

I put my search on hold once more and answered him. “I lost my money and can’t find it anywhere”. 

“How much did you lose, he asked?”  Why does this guy care, I am thinking..

“One hundred dollars”, I said. 

He held up the $100 bill and I began to cry…I was so happy! 

It warmed me all over to find there are good people still left in the world I would call them angels or answers to the prayer I prayed, likely both. I walked over to the car, shook his hand, thanked him & and told him how much it meant to me, it was Christmas for my boys. 

Obviously he had been sitting there for quite some time waiting for me, (or someone) to come out of the store to determine who it belonged to before he drove off with it in his own pocket. I had been in the store for some time… long enough to have a basket full. I went back into the store and got more more item, a card to thank him.  I was thinking I might run into this man again and I wanted him to know it really meant something to me. I wrote up an article in the local paper, since I never saw him again, & still have the card to this day. Every so often I come across the card, and I remember there are Angels among us. That man’s gesture reminded me of that. That truly was my Christmas Gift.

I’ve since learned how unimportant the material gifts are. My Granny used to tell me not to “buy things” for her, she didn’t need “things”, she said, you can give me something you have made. I didn’t make a lot of sense to me when I was 16. The older I’ve gotten, the more I understand that it.