Sent With A Song

Wendy’s still out on leave at the Post Office,  and it was Martha’s day off.  I had never seen the woman behind the counter before.  The sign on the counter read Sally Ann. 

It was an easy transaction.  Only four 9×11 stuffed envelopes with tote bags and potholders in them.  One going to Laura in Canada.  I saved it for last because it involves extra paper work.

“Now I’m going to be singing the Canadian National Anthem in my head all day”, Sally Ann said to me.  “Oh,” I winced, “I’m sorry”.   But it wasn’t a bad thing.  Sally Ann said she loved singing it, and thought it was very beautiful.

So I asked her if she would sing it for me, that I had never heard it before.

If I expected anything it was that she’d sing a line or maybe hum the tune.  But she agreed and started to sing.

We stood facing each other across the counter and in a soft and pretty voice,  she sang the whole Canadian National Anthem.

I could feel her love of the song, she sang it with such quiet emotion.  I felt myself getting choked up, my eyes starting to fill.   Such I miracle I thought, to be sung to at the Post Office.   (I’m not sure how the man in line behind me felt)

Sally Ann is not Canadian.  She learned the National Anthem when she used to watch her brother play hockey at RPI.

“Now you can tell your friend  her package was sent off  with the Canadian National Anthem”, she said to me.

This is how it  can work, I thought.  Like connecting the dots across borders.  Art, music, sports.  From Canada to the US and back to Canada again.  Laura and me and Sally Ann.   Forming the points where the strands of the web connect, bringing us all closer together even if just for a little while.