As I milled around my booth at the Round Top Antiques Fair last Saturday morning, thankful, oh so thankful on this last day of the fall market that it had been a good outing for me, and that I could cut myself some slack for just a while, I noticed a woman sitting in my folding chair at the edge of the booth. She commented, “I like your stuff.”
“Thanks,” I replied, smiling.
“Do you mind if I sit in your chair…and enjoy the scenery?”
“Please do,” I insisted, although I became a little puzzled after she had sat there quietly for several minutes.
Her face wore a pleasant expression. And though I wasn’t really watching her, I did notice that she moved in the chair to take in the booths behind and to the left of her. In the mood for another cup of coffee, although I had already over served myself with caffeine, I asked if she would like something to drink, and then I noticed the palsy of what I assumed to be Parkinson’s in her hands, which she tried to keep at rest in her lap. “No, thank you, I’ll just sit here and watch your booth, if you don’t mind” she replied. I extended my hand to introduce myself.
“Harold? Harold Hollis?” she questioned with a big smile. “I’m Bobbie Sanders”. “Harold, you look great,” she exclaimed. I smiled in appreciation, having recently lost 20 pounds—down to about the same I weighed at 17 when I graduated from high school 47 years ago. Bobbie had graduated a year earlier with my middle sister Sue. “Bobbie, you look the same. I knew your face was familiar.” Although her hair was colored, there was not a line in her angelic, 66-year-old face.
After I returned, Bobbie and I caught up at fast forward speed on the last 48 years, mostly about her family and where she lived growing up, her mother, dad and uncle, where she lives now, and who she had married. She was energized to hear that I get to spend part of my year in northern New Mexico. Truly, just say the words Santa Fe, and most people say something like, “lucky you.” “When was the last time you saw Sue?” I asked. It was at their 40th class reunion in 2000. “Sue was a good volleyball player,” she added. “Huh, I don’t remember Sue playing volleyball.” “In a school so small everyone had to play something,” Bobbie commented. How could I not remember that about my own sister? Now, somewhere back in a 50-year-old memory, I see Sue in a maroon and white satin uniform. Yes, she played set up. My heart continued to fill as Bobbie and I talked, and I thought about this chance meeting—no, minor miracle—and another friendship fresh on my mind, one that has been rekindled with a classmate now living in Arizona, another gift, one that came my way following Mother’s death in early 2007.
Oh, the beauty of glimpsing into the past, a past that frankly I had chosen to leave behind decades ago—too many memories of being a boy, out of step as I saw it, with a bunch of kids in a rural high school in northwest Harris County Texas, class of 1961. Back then I felt so different, and inferior somehow, even though I excelled in school, winning honors in band and journalism. I didn’t play sports or excel in agriculture, in a setting where most boys did one or the other or both. As I watched others around me bloom into relationships, I felt alone. Apparently, I didn’t know anything about sustaining a friendship. The few boys from the high school band with whom I felt a friendship slipped into the past as soon as we walked across the stage on that May night. I have consciously ignored every class reunion. God willing, I’ll make the 50th.
After a few minutes, Bobbie’s older sister Joyce made her way back to my booth, accompanied by one of her daughters and another young woman. “Joyce, you look exactly the same as in high school,” I beamed. Yes, I recognized a classic hairstyle surrounding an equally classic chiseled jaw. Most likely, though, I didn’t even know her back then. After all, she was three years ahead of me. But I knew that face. On this reunion day of sorts, although we didn’t visit much more than a dozen minutes, it was ample time for me to realize that I had indeed received yet another gift. After both sisters asked me to say hello to my older sisters, Sue and Joan, Bobbie offered her hand. I didn’t expect a firm handshake. “God bless you,” she said. “God bless you,” I returned, decades old memories rocketing through my body, looking into the face of that slender high school volleyball player, daughter of a dairyman, a solid rural feminine soul, now made fragile by time and the promises of life. I hugged Joyce, as Bobbie was already making her way down the aisle, and asked for confirmation of what I already knew. “Yes,” she replied. “She’s doing fine. She’s a trooper.” How utterly precious, these two sisters, still close, on a Saturday outing that brought them to a little part of my world for a few mountainous minutes.
I’m the first to say that I don’t believe in accidents. And right along with that I know in my gut that we have to pay attention. Angels, from the Greek “angelos”, messenger. They’re out there. Sometimes they emerge from our past, or they are as close as our nose, day in and day out. They are acquaintances newly made—friendships in progress. They stop by unexpectedly, or by invitation, because they’re going to be in the area. They sit next to us on Sunday mornings, or wait in line with us at the grocery store. Some we avoid because they’re homeless or ill and scary looking. Mostly, they don’t wear a sign announcing their purpose or nature. It’s up to us to recognize them for who they are. Maybe it’s to give us an opportunity to view our experience through a different lens. Maybe the messengers need someone to listen or to be welcoming, even if they don’t realize it, allowing us the privilege of serving up some of life’s kindness, as we make our journey home.
Another Minor Miracle—Normangee, Texas (October 6, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis
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