I've established a relationship with a local athletic club, whereby once a month, I swing by to pick up donations for the nonprofit I work for.
More often than not, it's water bottles, sweatshirts, towels and bathing suits. Sometimes we get some t-shirts, once we got a men's suit and tie. In the end, I launder what we get, I throw out what we can't use and I bring the bags when I go back to work.
This time, the contents were the same. A couple of bathing suits, a pile of goggles, some sweatshirts, a few pairs of shoes, and a backpack.
I liked the backpack - I thought it would be good for our Pop Up Shops when we go to serve those with housing needs.
Except that backpack was full. Stuffed to the point of hard to close. I opened it up, found three cell phones, a stack of papers, at least six tubes of toothpaste and some dirty work out clothes. I thought nothing of chucking the clothing in the washer, but wondered about the papers. My goodness, with these cell phones, wasn't someone missing this pack?
The papers and flyers pointed to a man who works here in town as a realtor. They dated back to late 2019 and early 2020. I thought "well, it's been there for a while, so that's why they finally donated it."
There was a prescription bottle. And an update on some routine bloodwork.
Hmm, this wasn't right.
Ok - so maybe I'll send a message to the contact at the athletic club, but something said to skip that step as I was already 7 lines into the email and it was coming out all wrong. The athletic club didn't look, they didn't care, it was out of their hands.
So I thought about googling the guy. I had his name, occupation and address...and sure enough, 30 seconds later, I found him!
How cool! Ok, so I wonder if I could arrange to get his pack back to him.
But something didn't sit right. The bloodwork sheet had circles on it of elevated this and that. And it was from a local oncologist. Oh goodness, he hasn't sold a house in 2020 or 2021 and the market is raging right now. This isn't right.
How about I google his name and city - and in a hot second, there it was.
His obituary.
It spoke of his love of his daughters, his success as a realtor, his passion to help the animals at the shelter. He had a nice smile (all that toothpaste!) and a furry friend in his lap. The photo said a lot. He looked like a nice guy.
He wasn't survived by a wife, nor was one mentioned, but it did talk about two daughters. Several grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way.
The daughter. I could start there.
\And yea, 30 more seconds revealed she worked for a bank here in town.
I wasn't completely confident it was her. Her name was spelled uniquely enough that it should be, but it was plain enough that I found more women with her name all across the country. However, there was just one here in town.
A quick call to Hubs confirmed what I needed to do - I needed to place a call.
A short moment on hold and the woman on the other end picked up in a cheerful voice with a hearty "good morning, how can I help you?"
I responded with my name and place of work, stating I had a very odd question to ask her. Was it possible she was the daughter of the individual's name I had in front of me.
A tentative "yes...." followed - and I had to laugh. Did she think I was some long lost unknown sister? Was I a psycho? Crazy crap the internet tells us that happens all the time - I swore I wondered if that's what she thought.
"Well," I responded, "it's odd for us to get a backpack and I took the liberty of going through it. I noticed the cell phones and personal items and with an aging father myself, I thought if someone had found something of my dad's after he had passed, I'd want it back. Would you like to have it?"
You could see the smile on her face from 20 paces. "Ohmygoodness, yes, I would."
We chatted for a few more minutes, I said I'd be happy to get it to our office on Monday and that I was glad I took a chance to call some stranger out of the blue. How odd and how quick social media can work.
I hung up and went back to place all of his items in the backpack. As I lifted up the first set of items, I saw a little shimmer at the bottom...two glistening pennies.
I snagged them out, packed the bag and grabbed a notecard from our stash. I wrote to the daughter that I was delighted to have found her....that I've always heard that pennies are good luck, and at the bottom of the backpack there were two. Two pennies, two sisters. Right there in the bottom of her dad's bag. It was meant to be. And I wished her heart peace.
*******
The kids came home early - it was a half day. And if the backpack was going to be ready for this woman on Monday, I had to get it over there right away.
They listened so attentively - they shared in my desire to get it ready for this woman - they wondered about what photos might be on the phone.
We wondered, we smiled - and we wished them all luck.
Tomorrow will tell - did she text her sister? Are they overcome with joy? Or maybe sadness? Perhaps both.
There will be countless donations to come in and out of our door...but this one will stay with me for a while.
May your memory be eternal, sir.
