Seeking
Searching for the Elusive
Our driveway was scattered with a random array of household treasures. Once, each was a carefully selected and curated item in the arsenal of useful objects our family had tucked away. Now, it was time to pass these loyal servants on to their next owners.
Our parents had completed their lives. My loving mother, Shirley, a talented and prolific artist with an abiding love of vibrant color and whimsical topics had passed along multitudes of her artwork to her children and extended family. But still she had art to share. Our beloved father, Roger, he who taught us science at the dinner table, had left behind cool mechanical widgets and a library of technical books. Now it was time to carry on the generous life work of these two by paying it forward. And what a trove it was: A heavy-duty hoist our father had used to lift motors too weighty for ordinary huumans to carry. A salt shaker-sized bust of Abraham Lincoln. Massive telescope storage chests. Seven or eight American flags. Umbrellas. A worn and cheap set of shelves and desk left behind by a former tenant. A heavy-duty work lamp encased in a metal cage. And nestled amongst the mundane, a jewel of a fabulously blue armchair redecorated by our color-enthusiast mother settled in alongside its lesser friends.
"Everything is free!" we announced. Dogwalkers stopped by to seek their treasure.Well-dressed neighbors selected colorful paintings to hang in their hallways at home. The Fed-ex guy interrupted his delivery schedule to park his van to collect a stash of HO trains.The driver of the trash truck gleefully grabbed a collection of LPs.
"Can I have this chair?" A quiet Hispanic man tentatively indicated the lovely robin's egg blue armchair with matching ottoman.
"Yes, of course. As you know, everything is free." I looked into the hopeful eyes of this laborer browsing after a hard day of landscaping work. In his face I saw a man who was eager to take home something he couldn't ever afford to buy in a store.
"I don't think it will fit in my car." He indicated a Camry parked by the curb.
"That's OK, I will save it for you if you really want it. Can you come back tomorrow?" He indicated he could do that.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Jesus." Of course he pronounced his name in the usual Hispanic way, "Hay-soos."
I wrote down his name and telephone number. I pushed the chair and its ottoman into the garage and left a sign that read, "Hold for Jesus."
I went back inside and left the garage sale monitoring to my brother. I was busy pulling technical books off the shelves to be given to the Friends of the Library. As Roger had continued to augment his library from this very same source, it was truly an act of recycling. The bulk of his books, however, were tomes printed in th 1920s - 1940s. Most of them were books on light phenomena and optical design. One of my favorite books described all manner of phenomena from the refracting light of rainbows to the Green Flash occasionally seen at sunset.
As I boxed books, I mused about the azure armchair. First I had offered it to members of the family. Everyone else's house was already too full. From my "Buy Nothing" website ads, three potential takers had responded to offers for the chair, but then never materialized. Would anyone step forward to take the chair? I felt hopeful for Jesus. By setting the chair aside for him, I was taking a risk that he, too, might end up being a no-show.
By the end of the next afternoon, I called him to check the status of my chair adopter. He said he was working all day and asked what time we were going to bed. I said we were going to dinner at a neighbor's and he should call when he got there. As we ate, I realized with wry amusement that we were waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
He didn't show. My brother and I packed up the remainders from our garage sale to stash in the garage until next week when we would be back. In spite of the hopeful promises of Jesus, we are still left hoping the next guardian of the gorgeous cobalt armchair is still out there somewhere.
