“God Bless These People”

Jon reading at The Mansion today.

I stood at the  kitchen counter, my back to Jon, making tuna fish sandwiches for lunch.  We had just come back from reading stories at The Mansion.

“God bless these people,” Jon said.  When I asked who he meant he said, “All the people who buy these gift cards”.   I didn’t know it, but he was cutting open the small plastic padded envelopes that the Walmart gifts cards come in.  There were four envelopes, delivered by FedEx waiting for us on the back porch when we got home.

Finding those envelopes on the porch are such a normal part of our life now, but still each time I bring one in the house I announce it to Jon as if a little miracle just happened.

And in a way it did. It does.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Jon started asking for gift cards to Price Chopper,  a grocery store in Albany NY, where the families of the kids that go to Bishop Maginn food shop.  But soon it was clear that some of the aids who work at The Mansion needed help too.   And it turns out that all the families who needed help getting food could shop at Walmart.

Those little padded plastic envelopes have become a part of our everyday life.  But there is nothing ordinary about them or the people who send them.   They are all little miracle makers.

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