“Three Young Women”

Yesterday, around 6:00PM to be exact, three young women arrived at our front door.  After politely knocking, they waited for me to open the door.  I went to our door to greet our guests, and quickly invited Dorothy to accompany me when I saw who they were.

To my surprise, upon opening our door  two young women, ages 4 and about 6, said they had come to bring us happiness.  (The third young woman was their grandmother).   Holding one box of carefully decorated cookies and another box of recently made prizes, which included paper crowns with golden stars, homemade necklaces of many colored beads and strings and pieces of paper with shells glued and painted in careful rows on pieces of construction paper, these young women held up their boxes of prizes and delightful gifts and smiled at us.  “Pick something you want,” they said, with grandmother carefully observing at the base of our stairs.

I selected two carefully decorated cookies, packaged together in a plastic sandwich wrap.  Dorothy chose a group of painted shells, carefully arranged on a white piece of construction paper.

I asked these young women if they were raising money for some good cause, not sure how to respond.  “No, no,” they said.  “We just want to make you happy!”

I think I began to cry.  Since older men do not cry in front of young women of ages 4 and 6, I held back my tears and attempted to smile.  “See,” grandmother said to me, “You are smiling, it did make you happy!”

Satisfied that they had accomplished their purpose, I watched as these young women and grandmother walked down my stairs and hurried off to visit our neighbor across the street.  Later I heard my neighbor’s excited cries of delight as they visited her.

I have lived a long time, and after 64 years I never thought I would ever witness anyone coming to visit me simply to make me happy.  I have still not recovered from the experience of the visit of these three young women.  I think if I should live another hundred years, I will still retain a little piece of the joy and happiness they innocently gave to me and Dorothy.

I am still trying to process the meaning of what these young women did yesterday.   I have wondered aloud to Dorothy about why grandmother had her granddaughters do such a thing.

Tonight, I witnessed these same young women with grandmother visit another neighbor further up our street.  They brought her gifts and prizes and a newly baked cake.  I am still thinking about their visit to our home.  I wonder if they realize the joy they are giving to our neighborhood.

I have omitted their names as they never told me who they were.  I wonder now, did God visit me and I forgot to ask his name?

Bill W.

Addend:  In the  first version of this story, I related this story as three young women and their grandmother.  But my wife tells me there were only two younger women and their grandmother.  Can someone tell me why I saw three?  I am sure I saw another child in age between the other two.