Lessons From a Garage Sale

Over the fourth of July holiday last summer, we found ourselves wandering into a neighboring town to check out the garage sales. We're always drawn to the lakeside homes and cottages, with the hope that one day we may retire to a lakeside home ourselves.
We had Angel with us, so we were taking turns sitting with her in the vehicle, and Steve decided to stay behind while the girls and I checked out a nice looking sale near the lake. It was a beautiful sunny day and the friendly older couple greeted us cheerfully, almost as if they were waiting for us to arrive.

As the girls made their way  to a table of books, the trim, gray-haired man dashed behind them and touched one of the many antique items  that appeared to be part of his personal collection. Suddenly "The Twist" belted out from an old jukebox, and the girls jumped. We all smiled at him and he obviously got a kick out of surprising us. He then proudly exclaimed, "I won first place at the Twist competition every year!"
  I noticed that we seemed to be the only people at the sale for a long time, and the gentleman was kind, whistling and talking about the beautiful day. After awhile, his wife went inside, maybe to fix lunch, I guessed. We made small talk about the weather, and then he began to ask questions of the girls, prompting me to jump in now and then when they became tongue-tied or looked to me to fill in the gaps.  Did they get good grades? How old were they? Did they like school? Oh, they liked music?  Guitar? That's great! They took lessons? You have a cottage nearby? How far? And on and on the questions went, and soon we found ourselves standing in this man's garage, just talking away like neighbors, I suppose.

 Upon mentioning some of Natalie's college choices, he even went on to tell us the college where he flunked out at first, and then went on to the U of M to graduate at the top of his class. He was encouraging my girls to stay education-focused, which didn't bother me at all!
He then spoke of his own two daughters, close in age like mine, both older, of course, closer to my age. They had both gone on to college to find successful careers and businesses and start families. One became an eye doctor, the other an architect, I believe. He was a typical father, full of pride, speaking of his two daughters, eyes looking up now and then, smiling at his own memories of them. But then his face grimaced slightly and he looked me right in the eyes and said, "My daughter died of cancer a few years ago, and now we're raising her two girls. They're 9 and 11...their dad left....we're retired. Well, supposed to be...but now..well, we're doing this thing over again.." He kind of looked away and back at me and by then my heart had already felt his loss, and I simply said, "I'm so sorry about your daughter. Those girls are blessed to have you, I can tell." "Yeah, they asked if they should call us mom and dad." I was both touched and surprised at this sharing of such personal information. I think I just gave the most honest look I had on my face at that time, not knowing what to say to that. After all, I'm a stranger in a garage, hearing a stranger's heart speak. I didn't expect this. In fact, I was still running from my own grief for the most part.   He wanted to say more, but took a minute and just looked at my girls standing there. He asked again how old they were and I told him. He looked back at me, and sweetly said, "Are you sure? You don't look much older than that yourself!" Now, that man knows just what to say, doesn't he?

 I was glad to have the tension broken a bit, and we talked about whether or not his granddaughters should try guitar lessons, and he seemed to pick my brain a bit about girls in general, seeing I was a mom of two myself. He was curious about our  family cottage nearby, and even where we live. I was surprised to find that we actually reside in the same county! His  job used to take him all over the county, including our own tiny little town, of which he was very fond of and  familiar.  In talking further, I learned he also has hunting property just a few miles from us too. I just smiled. Is the world small? Oh yes, it is! And then it was, "Do you know this person? Do you know that person?"
Feeling guilty for leaving Steve in the car so long, and wanting him to connect with my new "friend",I finally motioned for him to come and look at some cool neon signs, and other "guy stuff"  he had for sale. Then the conversations began again with Steve! They talked about all kinds of things. Guy stuff.

The tables at the garage sale were covered with educational toys and books and nicely folded clothes in pinks and purples, much like the things we used to buy our own girls. I didn't see much of anything I couldn't live without until I came across this Christmas tea set with the words Peace, Hope, and Joy, and decorated with red cardinals. Since Jeff died, I had heard that if a cardinal visits your yard, it is like having your loved one come back to visit you. Seeing those cardinals, hearing him talk about his daughter, and knowing I needed something to remember this day by, I knew that was the item for me. Well, that and I love tea sets and now, cardinals.

By then, the man had spoken of his daughter a few more times, and I noticed he would slip from present to past tense. "She is so smart..well, she was..."  "She has...well, she had..." and somewhere in that odd jumble of conversation, I managed to tell him I had just lost my 50 year old brother suddenly and he left his 11 and 18 year old sons behind. I don't know why I did that, because with it still being so fresh in my mind, I rarely spoke those words aloud, let alone to a stranger, who now oddly felt like someone I knew. But here stood a grandfather/father with 2 young granddaughters, motherless, and a father who bailed on them. And he's telling me all these things. Me, a total stranger, buying a tea set. All I did was walk into his garage,smile at him, and say hello.

After Steve visited with the man for a few more minutes and we paid for our items, his wife came back out, and suddenly it seemed the sale was mobbed with people. It was the strangest thing.  I think I even said out loud, "Where did all these people just come from suddenly?"
As we left, I told Steve of our conversation in the garage,and he didn't seem surprised at all. These things seem to "happen" to me quite often, it's true.  And as I thought about it, and thought about that tea set this Christmas when I put it out, it occurred to me. Loss is like a family all its own. It connects you in a way that no other feeling can. It's a "me too" that no one wants to say, but most everyone can say. Everyone's experience is different, but most everyone knows what it's like to move on in life without someone they thought would be there longer. Those two little girls, my two young nephews. Those parents. My parents. That sister. Me. My siblings. We're all connected by the one thing we never wanted to face.  The strange thing is, that man didn't know any of that when I walked into his garage. He simply saw a mother with two young daughters, and that was something he could relate to in a way that I didn't understand by just looking at this grandfatherly man.

 The human connection can be so simple sometimes, and yet we complicate it so much. Kindness, a smile, and a catch phrase can go a really long way in changing the course of someone's day.  "I won the Twist competition every year!" I think I need to come up with one of my own. It works on strangers, but just think if we tried it out on the people we take for granted every day. I wonder just how many more people in our lives we would become a little more grateful for every day? I wonder how many friendships could be saved if instead of saying,"I'm too busy for you", we'd say, "Gosh, I wish I had more time to spend with you because I value you so very much!" What a difference it would make, wouldn't it? And instead of ignoring someone's text for days, or not answering their email, we'd instead answer back, "Thanks for the note! I will get back to you as soon as I can. Hope you're doing great. I'm anxious to talk to you." Instead of..."I'm so busy doing other things that I don't have time for you."

Learn from loss, and the Twistmaster. Life is too precious to be too busy for anyone, and I'd rather be visited by people than cardinals any day.