A Chance Meeting
Read: Proverbs 31:10-31
Every once in a great while, a few times in a lifetime if you’re lucky, you may meet someone and right away you know you’re looking into a face sent to you from God. Such was the case many years ago when I went to see a marina service business owner to pay an invoice. While I could have mailed a check, I wanted to do it in person. The owner mistakenly thought I was there looking for a job and made me an offer. Thinking quickly I negotiated a better deal than I’d ever had at that time and he voided the invoice I came in to pay. On the way out I had to stop by to see his secretary to make the arrangements and clear my debt. That’s when it happened.
We had seen each other around the marina before but had never formally met. After the paperwork, we talked and I learned she was raising 2 boys on her own. She left a better job at a bank to come to the marina because it was closer to home. When she was done at the marina she went to a 2nd job she worked to make ends meet. In the weeks and months that followed I learned she was the one who actually ran the place. She handled all the day to day operations, HR work, budgets, inventory, payables, receivables etc. Everyone in the harbor kept an eye on her and helped out if she needed something done around the house.
The younger of the 2 boys was born with a hole in the base of his spinal cord. The doctors gave him a good chance to live, but said he would never walk. The poor doctors didn’t know she’s Irish on one side and Italian on the other and nobody was going to tell her what her boy couldn’t do.
Scared and alone, haunted by the possibility the doctors could be right, saddled with a mortgage and two hungry mouths to feed, she went out into the garage, found some old scraps of lumber, some nails, and a small hammer. She didn’t have a saw, but she had a Ginsu knife. Using what she had, she built tiny gym equipment in her living room and with the help of his slightly older brother she taught the lad to walk. Growing up was harder for him, but if you met him you’d never know. While he didn’t win many foot races, nothing on God’s green earth can stop that boy today.
She eventually left the marina for a better opportunity at the world’s leading packaging company. Even though she left the marina behind, you could say we stayed in touch. It was tough but she climbed the corporate ladder to become the Comptroller of the local branch of a Global Fortune 500 company. After 11 years though the company made an unfortunate decision and eventually closed all 7 branches in Michigan and left the state.
Somewhere along the way she met a sailing charter boat captain in between sojourns and he taught her to drive a boat. Now she’s back in the old marina on her own boat and became the envy of the old crew because she can handle a twin engine Chris Craft as well as anyone in the business.
The passing of parents and the trials and tribulations of daily life have slowed us all down now and the moments we share together are more and more treasured each time I see her.
Even though she can finally have pretty much whatever she wants, she still won’t buy anything unless she has a coupon, and she still gets all excited when the right coupon comes in the paper.
Through it all she’s maintained a smile and laugh such that she can light up any room simply by entering it.
And that boy who wasn’t supposed to walk?? He just made me a grandpa.
As the late great Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the RRRRRrrrest of the story.”
Ron Draper
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