To the stranger I will never meet

To the stranger I will never meet:

I didn't want to get up this morning, step into clothes, rise into the winter sun. But there were birthdays to prepare for and stories to be chased.

I sped off from the store, helium balloons bobbing in the back seat, thinking about my next interview 35 miles away. At work, I printed background documents to read and ran off to grab lunch on the way. That's when I noticed my wallet was gone.

The searching went on for no more than five minutes, in my car, upstairs at my desk. Things were just getting frantic when the phone rang. My neighbor. And I just knew.

You found my wallet in the middle of the street, checked the address on my license, and brought it straight to my doorstep. I wasn't there when you knocked so you left it with the neighbors.

Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in the good when one writes about crime and hears about death like I do all the time. They call it the Mean World Syndrome. But I always imagine that life is an interesting, tragic journey of intersecting paths, and today, yours crossed mine.

I don't know your name--you didn't leave it--so I can't tell you "thank you". But, thank you. I'm glad there are people like you in the world. And I'm glad we met.

Be blessed.


Photo of a child holding a Monarch butterfly by Peter Reali from Corbis