Backyard Blessings
On a country stroll, we discovered that good deeds come back tenfold.
Luck and courtesy return a lost key to the rightful owners.
My wife, Sandy, and I like to take late-afternoon walks down the quiet country roads in our small town. We stroll into the countryside in just a few steps. One of our favorite roads takes us past corn, hay and alfalfa fields and rustic, weathered barns. Friendly horses and milk cows wait at the fences for their owners to bring them a special treat, or for people like us to stop and pat them on the nose.
A small creek crosses the road and winds its way down the valley. Giant cottonwood trees offer shade and display vibrant colors as the season slowly changes to fall.
As we walk, we often look down at the many animal tracks. The critters seem to prefer the ease of the road compared to traveling through plowed fields and crossing fences. The road goes nowhere, meandering lazily past farms for miles before it dead-ends. Nothing moves fast on this road—people go in and come out the same way.
As we walked back home one beautiful fall day, we noticed a key on the road. We thought someone who lived nearby lost this key and would need it. We hung it on a fence where a deflated birthday balloon had settled. We hoped that eventually someone would spot their missing key.
For the next few days we kept busy with our 2 acres. Although we don’t have a farm, it’s still continual work to keep the gardens watered and the weeds pulled.
A week later, with a full day of outdoor chores ahead of us, we realized our shed key was missing. It wasn’t in its usual resting place in our mudroom. We searched and searched, but it was nowhere. We pulled out the spare key and went on with our work.
One of the jokes between us, as aging seniors, is that it takes both of us to be a whole person. Our skills and physical abilities are perfectly complementary, each providing the missing attributes of the other. I have the long-term memory and my wife has the short-term memory for both of us.
Several weeks later, a lightbulb went on. I don’t remember which of us thought of it first. What if we’d found our own key 5 miles down that country road? Could that have really happened?
The next day, we went to see if the key was still on the fence. Luckily, the remnants of that colorful balloon helped us spot it. We took the key home for a test. Sure enough, it worked! We had lost and found our own key!
I learned a lesson, too: If I have a handkerchief in my pocket when I leave the house, then a key (and likely loose change) may not come home with me.