Garage Sale Draws a Special Visitor

I met a very special woman at our family’s garage sale recently.

I thought it was strange when a taxicab drove up and dropped off a quite elderly woman. She walked with a white cane and spoke in a curt manner. Not quick to smile or make small talk, she introduced herself and said, “I’m 98 years old, deaf and blind. I give everything away. I spent $4 to get here, too!” She said she was looking for toys. My son, being a teenager, had no small trinkets or toys to sell. She made it known she was disappointed.

I gave her a gold glittered scarf as consolation and a decorative coat hanger she fancied. I heard loud objections because she did not want to take anything without paying. We battled and I won.

Later she pulled out of her shopping bag a pair of hand-knit slippers, the kind with a pompom on top. I was truly touched and started to get tears in my eyes. When I told her I could not accept them, the lion’s roar was heard: “I may be old, deaf and blind, but I can still knit.”

She turned when she heard the sound of children. A boy came near where she was sitting, and she pulled out a harmonica from her shopping bag. The boy didn’t know what to do when our visitor said, “Here, takes this” in her rather brusque tone. I told him it was a gift and he quietly said, “Gracias.” She did not hear him so I shouted his thanks several decibels louder. A warm smile crossed her face and her blue eyes lit up. With that, I understood why she came to our garage sale.

When the cabdriver came, he told me that every Saturday he takes her to a garage sale and she loads up on toys to give away. As I waved goodbye, I thought to myself that the true holiday spirit is incorporated in this 98-year-young woman every day of her life. I felt truly honored by this chance meeting.

JUDY WELCH, Thousand Oaks