The Newspaper Fairies Nextdoor

Shortly after I had knee replacement I decided I wanted to read the

paper. (Yes we still get the printed paper and yes it is a continued conversation in our house, but as my dear friend Ethan says about why he still gets it, "I like to hold it, and I like the way it smells." We are newspaper kindred spirits.) Anyway....

I wanted to read it, and I wanted to read it right then, not when there was a family member around to go out to the driveway and get it for me. (I'm kind of hard headed.) So I got my walker (stop laughing) and moved to the front door knowing full well getting down even those two steps was going to be hard and probably stupid. I opened the front door and lo and behold, there it was right smack dab in the middle of the door mat. All I had to do was bend down and pick it up. I was overjoyed!

The next morning when I moved to the front door, there it was again. And the next day, again the newspaper was there. "I wonder," I thought to myself, "Why the newspaper delivery person has started putting newspapers on our front porches? It doesn't always get right to the mat, but it's still there." I didn't think about it for long. First I was on painkillers so no thought lasted long or was logical, and second I was just thrilled I didn't have to maneuver the walker and my body down the stairs and across our desperately in need of fixing bricks broken front walk.

One morning as I moved to the front door I saw my beautiful young next door neighbor skipping up the walk swinging the paper in her hand (the daughter not the mother...although the mother is also beautiful and young). She tossed it on the mat and skipped back to the car to head off to school.
My eyes filled with tears as my heart filled with joy--and no it wasn't the pain medicine.

The next morning I watched again as the younger sister picked up the paper. She cautiously moved up our walk. She stopped about midway and with all her strength and a determined grimace on her face, threw the paper onto the porch. It didn't make the mat, but it cleared all the steps. I laughed out loud at the look on her face and the speed with which she turned and ran back to the car not looking back.

This became a daily source of joy for me--watching the girls get to the paper, figure out whose turn it was, and delivering the paper. Sometimes it looked like they were trying to do it covertly and sometimes they sang and skipped as they approached the porch--granted they are under double digits so perhaps they still thought they were being secretive.

One morning a friend of mine arrived early to take me to PT and brought me the paper. "No!" I shrieked, "Put it back." While he looked at me like I had lost my mind, he also took in the cane in my hand that I'm sure he realized I could use as a club if I so chose, so he hurriedly returned the paper to the end of the driveway. I explained to him why I had acted like a lunatic in that moment (he's still waiting for explanations for all the other times) sharing the joy it brought me each morning watching the girls from behind the curtains of my house. (Now you're picturing Mrs. Kravitz....)

Just to be fair to the story and also to permanently delete the picture in your head of two girls with rainbows over their heads and colorful stars shooting out from their heels as they skipped towards my house with halos over their heads and an hallelujah chorus echoing through the heavens, there were times they had obviously forgotten whose turn it was and there were some minor scuffles. There was also the time they held it between them, swinging it as they brought it together tossing it together. (The older one did then run up to make sure it was on the mat--typical first child!)

Once I was able to stand for a period of time, I baked a batch of cookies and took it next door to thank the girls. So now they know I know or maybe they've forgotten--they are young. I am now perfectly capable of walking to the end of the driveway without any fear to get the paper, but I don't. They still bring the paper to the porch each day. Now that it's summer, it's not always early in the morning. In fact, sometimes it's not until late afternoon, but I wait. And I insist everyone else does too. There are some days I have gone to work and probably already heard the news from NPR before the paper is delivered to my porch. But when I drive up and see it waiting there for me, I always smile and my heart sings (You are so lucky it's my heart singing and not my voice.) and I read it even already knowing most of the news.

Last night I sat reading the paper (even the obituaries which Caroline finds very creepy) and thought about all the negative news--the despair, the angst, the vitriol, the let's name it--evil and I thought about my newspaper fairies. Despite all the negative in the world, those two young girls and their gift to me reminds me of the goodness of people and it gives me hope.

I was reminded that in this world where there is so much brokenness and despair, but there is also goodness. These young girls reminded me to take a step back, to stop being overwhelmed and to live the words of Edward Everett Hale, an American author and Unitarian clergy man of the 19th century, "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do."

There will come a day when the thrill of delivering the crazy lady next door's newspaper no longer exists--I mean I'm sure when they're 16 and leaving for school they'll be two bleary eyed--but I will never forget these months and the joy and hope it brought to me. I will never forget they did something, and so can I.

Isaiah 11:6b "and a little child shall lead them."