Impossible Dream

Good Heart

Kids, all kids, were always, and still are in her current state, close to A’s heart. She would do anything for them. One dream she had for “her kids” reveals just a little detail about how good and caring a person she has always been.
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Impossible

She collected bags full of bread tags because she heard that cashing them in would raise funds for kids.

We went to the store where she thought she could turn them in.

“So sorry,” the lady told us, “We don’t collect these.”

A was  hurt and felt deeply disappointed.

Well, we asked, do you know who does?

“You could try the X store.”

We drove across town and went into the X store.

“So sorry,” the man there said. “We don’t collect these.”

A was close to tears.

Well, we asked, do you know who does?”

“You might try the recycling depot.”

Good thought, I said, trying to re-invigorate A’s hopes, for by now she looked quite forlorn.

Let’s try, I said. She perked up…a little.

Maybe the collection date is over, she said.

Well, anyway, I said, it’s for your cadets.

We drove to the recycling depot on the outskirts of town. We carried a sample of A’s vast collection to the window that served as service entry to what ‘they’ described as an office. We rang the bell.

A dour-looking woman emerged from the piles of boxes and shadows of shelves and waddled over to the window. We peered down at her.

Do you redeem bread tags for the children’s fund? we asked.

“Never heard of it,” the person replied.

But there was a campaign, A said plaintively.

“So sorry,” the person responded apathetically in a growly voice.

“We don’t redeem these things.”

A was devastated.

What should we do with them? I asked.

“Put ’em in the plastics-only bin.”

And with that, the person turned her back and waddled back into the shadows.

A retreated to the car as I, ever so reluctantly, dumped the precious bread bag tags into the plastics-only recycle bin. I felt almost as bad as when I’d had to bury her cat, struck by a car.

A was inconsolable. She’d had such high hopes. She so loved doing good.

She wept all the way back to town. In a desperate effort to return her to her usual optimistic self, I offered her dinner out. She loved to eat out. But today, she didn’t. Not even for Jim’s fantastic home-made chocolate ice cream for “afters.”

I should have known. She would never want to be seen in public looking tear stained.

I offered to put twenty bucks into her campaign fund. Her reaction told me, do what you like.

I cashed in my savings for a new president’s chair at the Y club, and wrote a cheque.

No more was ever said about collecting tin foil, once the rage to raise funds for some good cause or other; nor was there ever again any conscious recollection of collecting rubber, once used to raise money and material for the war fund when we were children, me in
Canada, her in England; nor of any other special collection fund to support her youth causes.

She just went ahead and sold poppies with her cadets, raised money at bake sales and potluck supper dances, etc. She raised thousands, and her little cadets got pea jackets for the winter, clear plastic raincoats for the summer (a long season on our Wet Coast), and they enjoyed two weeks every summer at the lake, otherwise an impossible dream.

She was pleasantly pleased, however, when she learned that an anonymous donor had given a thousand dollars to her youth venture.

The money helped buy ten tents and a hundred spots for a special two-week recovery holiday for her disadvantaged youth project.

A was back to her usual optimistic self. Impossible dream made possible.

And I had my fifteen minutes of fame, albeit all to myself.

Just goes to show what a good heart she is.

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Image Credits: All images from Clip Art (no further credit allocations found)