A short note for today

Apparently not having a schedule for almost two weeks detracted from my energy level rather than enhancing it. I spent more time doing basically nothing than I thought possible, because the urgency wasn't there. There was always tomorrow.

Until yesterday. I woke up Sunday knowing that the next day I'd be back at work. And voila, my energy came back, full force. A big task related to the incipient children's theatre company suddenly seemed doable, so I actually sat down and did it. Immediately!

The 11-day work break had its moments. I watched “Julie and Julia” twice and spent two delightful days with my older grandson, including sleepovers in my home, and another two days moving furniture and hiding (along with the cats) from the dust and noise of sanding. The payoff to that is that we now have a beautiful, smooth hardwood floor in the living room. It still needs staining and sealing, but since that will require us to leave for a few days, it's a project for a later time.

And I skated a lot, doggedly practicing, or rather attempting to execute, a couple of basic and necessary maneuvers that are the prelude to regaining the jump-spin level of the sport. (Small jumps, slow spins!) I even took grandson and his cousin to the rink. But that wasn't the best thing that happened that day. Devyn gave me permission to tell you the story.

Seems he had found a ring in a box in his house, but no one in his family knew where it came from or claimed it. It was a small ladies ring with diamond and pearl setting, and probably had been left in a box they used for moving in. Devyn urgently wanted to know if the ring was real gold, so I agreed to help him get an assessment.

Before going to the rink, we went to a nearby mall that has a jewelry store. The proprietor was a kindly woman who examined the ring and said it was gold mixed with metal, the diamonds were fake, the pearl was real but a very low grade. She said a jeweler could only buy it to extract the gold, and based on current gold prices and the amount that was in the ring, it would be worth $20.

We left and started walking toward the mall exit while Devyn pondered this information, but then he saw something -- actually, someone -- that halted his steps. "I want to sell it right now," he told me. So back we went to the jeweler, who exchanged the ring for two $10 bills. I'm going to give $10 to the man who walks around here all the time, he explained to the lady.

We both knew who Devyn meant: a bushy bearded, gray haired man known as Bill, who can be seen at that mall every day, winter and summer. I've never seen him beg. And this is important, because we are Bahá'ís, and Bahá'u'lláh very explicitly forbade both begging and giving to beggars. He also said "O ye rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease."

I don't know Bill's situation, whether he really is poor and homeless, but it didn't matter. Supporting Devyn's generous spirit was the higher priority. So I stood quietly by and watched as he walked up to the man and handed over one of the $10 bills, for which he received a gracious and grateful response.

And that left Devyn $10 to add to his savings for something called a Gameboy Advanced, which he was happily able to purchase that evening.

For me that moment in the mall was the best part of my grandson's visit. And as my daughter noted in her own recent blog, being a grandma is a high priority in my life. All of my grandparents died before I was born and I had missed having them in my life, so being a grandparent myself seemed a very important goal. Not one I could reach on my own, of course. It required my daughter's cooperation. And she can tell you what a pest I was about that before she met and married her husband at what I thought was close to a dangerously advanced age for my own chances of attaining grandparenthood.

But that's another story.

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