Our Gift
Updated: Dec 28, 2018
I love what I do but some parts of it are not easy. Like negotiating a reclaimed wood purchase with the widow of a beloved neighborhood farmer. I avoided it for three years until I heard the farm was for sale and she could use some help. I approached her with care and offered as much as I could. Her soft-spoken reply of “that sounds fine Steve” was expected.
Heart Wrenching Reclaimed...
We got right to work stripping the horse stalls that her husband Art had built, and removing the doors that his ancestors had built several generations earlier. She would peek in on progress and I would use the opportunity to explain to her how everything would be reused, and how we would give all of her materials a new lease on life. Although she displayed strength it was clear to me her heart and her world remained broken. The farm sold soon after and she moved away.
Time passed quickly, as it does, and in just over a year we had successfully put just about all of the material back into use through several different residential and commercial projects.
The Stars Align...
16 months after that mid-summer reclamation project I found myself meeting one of my sons at a restaurant for marketing photos of our work with local businesses. There were only a few people in the restaurant but there were two ladies seated at a table directly in front of the doors I had installed 6 months earlier. As I approached I was amazed to see who it was. Lillian, Art's widow from Crystal Spring Farm was sitting directly facing the doors and I just stood there and stared at her. As I approached her she stood up and we hugged.
I explained to her I was there with my son to photograph the doors I had installed months earlier. Then I said to her “you know these are your doors right?" She gasped, covered her mouth and began to cry. She smiled at me, walked over to the doors and slowly put her hand out to touch them. Then in her soft voice she said; “Steve, you did a great job. Arthur would be very pleased.”
I will never understand how it is that our paths crossed this evening in the way they did and the circumstances behind it all. It very well may be that our friend Art played a hand in this coincidental meet up. But I am very thankful for our encounter.
It was a gift to both of us.
Steve Garceau - founder and artisan- reworx usa
