An Old Chipped Bowl

Many years ago, when my firstborn was an infant, we lived for a time in a horrendous apartment in a former storefront building in a small New Hampshire village. Why do I describe the place as 'horrendous?' It was a fire trap, an accident waiting to happen and we immediately began looking for a new place to rent. In the meantime, we'd been there for some time before I ever realized that a wizened old lady lived in the ground-floor apartment behind us. She seldom stirred outside, even to the sun on her doorstep in summer, and the winter was long and harsh.

In time, I learned that our neighbor had no relatives; that she lived on her Social Security benefits, which could not have been much; that she was unusually unfriendly and difficult to deal with.

My son suffered with colic until he was on solid foods and everyone near the poor little tyke suffered right along with him.

He seldom slept for more than two hours at a stretch and the nights were pierced with his distressed cries. Nothing helped much...except time!

I began to feel badly that Mrs. Wheeler (not her real name) must be laying awake nights... possibly thinking my husband and I were torturing our poor little infant. So one morning, the baby tucked under one arm, I rapped on her door. When she finally responded I haltingly apologized for our disturbing her sleep as I handed her a plate of fresh-baked cookies.

Mrs. Wheeler said little, but eyed the baby with interest through her thick glasses. I rattled on nervously. Finally she said, touching his chin tentatively, "He'll outgrow it all right.

We did not exactly become friends, but I took to rapping on Mrs. Wheeler's door more and more often, usually with some "extra" homemade soup or other offering. Now and then she'd allow me get her something at the grocery across the street or the nearby drug store.

The two of us spent very little time together and I never was invited inside her humble quarters. But the day I mentioned that we'd finally had found a house of our own to rent, I thought she looked more sad than usual. Soon we were packing cartons in preparation for our move.

"Our" house was only two miles distant, so it was not a difficult transition. My husband borrowed a friend's truck and made a few trips, while I tended the baby and swept the floors one last time.

When my husband returned for the last of our belongings and his family, we said a grateful goodbye to the apartment, happy to be moving on to a homier and safer place.

When I climbed up beside my husband, I had to push aside a tissue-wrapped object on the seat of the truck, but I didn't think much about it. Once we arrived to begin the scurry of making a new home, my husband came inside with me, saying, "I brought in whatever this is."

'Whatever this is' turned out to be a lovely cut-glass bowl, with a chip in its fluted rim. On a torn bit of lined paper in the nest of the bowl was a note reading: "I've lost a dear neighbor. Good luck, Mrs. W."

In years to come, now and then my husband, son, or daughter might say, "What's this awful old bowl?" as we had a spring cleaning in my various kitchens. Needless to say, the old chipped bowl will never go to the discard pile.