A few Christmases ago, I ordered a bench for our living room, that was handmade. It has a really cool flokati shag cover that reminded me of my favorite rug to lie on when I was a little girl. I had actually ordered it that October, but for some reason, it was taking a long time to be made and then to be delivered, and I finally got notice that it was to arrive on Christmas Eve, via UPS. I actually found that delivery date to be exciting and special and was eagerly awaiting its arrival.
Christmas Eve rolled around and during our festivities, I kept wondering when my bench was going to arrive. It got later and later, and the bench wasn’t being delivered, so I checked my email for the delivery status. The email showed that it had been delivered! Now, we were home all morning and it’s a pretty big, heavy bench so it would not have easily been stolen off of the porch. I was distraught. I called the company and UPS and they put “tracers” out to see what might have happened with our package and they told us that we would likely hear something within a week or two. I was so disappointed!!
Now, I’m not sure if it was intuition or just my demanding, impatient side that doesn’t do well with disappointment, but I remembered that sometimes our mail delivery person sometimes transposed our address numbers with another neighbor with a similar but different number-ordered address, (who we did not know) several houses down the street. I had to put that neighbors’ mail in their box more than a couple of times, due to the dyslexic confusion. My husband and son, eager to get away from my welling dismay, agreed to walk down the street and to see if perhaps, that is where the bench had accidentally been delivered.
My husband and son were gone for a good 45 minutes and I was starting to get concerned. The holiday spirit was zapping down to nothing in our house. They weren’t answering texts and calls and I was getting ready to walk down the street to see who or what was keeping them, when all of the sudden, they opened the front door, carrying in the lovely bench! My hunch was correct! But here is the best part of the story . . .
The neighbor was a new neighbor of Eastern European descent. She was older, had just recently moved here, and she did not know too many people. She had been thrilled when my husband and son arrived at her door, because she believed that they had been sent “specially” to her. You see, her family heritage has a strong tradition and belief, that on Christmas Eve you cannot leave your house, until you have first, entertained a visitor and given them a gift. She had a party to get to and was patiently waiting for a “visitor” who might appear. So, not only did my son and husband come back with the beautiful bench, but my lucky son also received a bag of candy and a crisp $20 dollar bill, after a nice little visit with our sweet neighbor and some coffee and cookies. She said that she hadn’t even looked at the box that UPS had placed by her garage earlier that day because she just assumed it was things that she had ordered for Christmas.
I’ve written before that my friend has told me that coincidence is God being anonymous. I think that it applies here to this very true, heartwarming story that I think about, with a smile, any time that I glance at my bench. No horse pucky here!! (please check out my other previous “no horse pucky stories”- all crazy, but true)
