The Green Wallet

To the person who owned this wallet, whom I will never meet. Let me tell you the story.It was New Years Eve, the busiest day of the year to go shopping. I was late for an appointment and had to take my daughter into the store to get a few groceries. It was pouring down rain, the wind was blowing and all I wanted to do was be done with Portland and get back to my warm home away from the city. We decided we would be faster to just carry our bags by hand and run to the car without the cart. The gentleman who checked us out was very kind and patient, with my daughter who was using the auto check out for 15 items or less, for her 30 items or more. When we left the store to run to my car, I saw your wallet laying in the rain, and for a brief second I thought to leave it and let someone else deal with it who had more time but hopefully honest. But then the face of a desperate woman who might have owned the wallet flashed through my mind. I thought what would someone else do, if that would have been mine. So I did the only thing I could have or would have done, picked up your wallet, balanced my daughters groceries in my hands and ran back into the store. I found the nice checker who had an honest face and said, "sir, sir, someone lost this green wallet can you find who it belongs to, PLEASE!" He turned around and smiled at me, not knowing if he was smiling because I was making a spectacle of myself being dripping wet, or that I was yelling to get his attention or that he was just a kind man, who had compassion for a yelling, dripping wet woman. I knew the wallet was safe with him because he had such an honest face and was so helpful with our checkout and my need to rush and my frustration with my daughter who couldn't find her Safeway savings card as he had to use his to get her the discount after I told him I was too much in a hurry for her to dig through her purse.

When I left the store the second time, the hood of my coat flew back from the wind and the rain fell on my face and I looked up and said, "God, you are so mysterious, I don't know your ways, but thats ok, I appreciate you smiling down on me and that deserves a smile back." I'm not sure why I was picked to find the wallet, but I know God knows. Maybe you, the owner of the green wallet needed to know for you New Year, that there is hope in humanity. God knew I would do the right thing, but maybe you have lost faith in people, I don't know, maybe never will. But will always remember the green wallet the rain and wind in my face, and the feeling of joy in my heart, and the excitement of what the New Year holds ahead.