“Where on earth is that check?” my mother cried. She sat next to me at the kitchen table, flipping through a mountain of bills, receipts and envelopes. “It was right here!”
When she got to the bottom of the pile with no luck, she closed her eyes, tight, and bowed her head. I knew she was saying a prayer for help.
I’ll find it! I thought. But if my mother couldn’t find the all-important unemployment check, what chance did an 11-year-old have?
READ MORE: WORRIES CARRIED AWAY BY THE WIND
My mother called what our family was going through now a rough time. It happened every year when the local seafood factory where she worked closed for the season. My father, a truck driver, picked up a few overtime hours to make up the difference, but we still really depended on the unemployment check that came every two weeks.
I could recognize that white envelope anywhere, with its shiny State of Maine seal. What would we do if it was lost? Would we have enough money to buy food?
“I’ve looked everywhere,” my mother said. “I give up!”
“Can I help?” I asked.
She gave me a tired smile. “No, just take out the garbage. The bag is almost overflowing with trash.”
I knew that wouldn’t help, but I grabbed the brown paper trash bag to take out back. Like lots of people in rural Down East Maine, we got rid of our burnable trash by setting it on fire in an old, rusted oil drum turned back over on its end. We called it a “burn barrel.” Burning the trash was my favorite chore. Dad had shown me how to strike a match without letting it go out, and I was a natural.
Outside I laid the paper bag on top of the ashes in the barrel. The air was cool, still. I lit the match. Poof! A gust of wind came out of nowhere! It blew out my match before I could get it down inside the bag. I shook my head and pulled out another match. Light the trash, quick, I thought.
READ MORE: BLESSED BY THE BREEZE
I scraped the match against the coarse striking surface. Poof! Wind again! It blew out my match the second I lit it, as if on purpose! What did the wind have against me? One after another I tried every match in the book, but the same thing happened to all of them.
This can’t be, I thought. What’s going on? I tiptoed back into the kitchen. My mother washed dishes in the kitchen sink and sang a hymn to calm herself down. I sheepishly told her what had happened.
“Maybe they were old matches,” my mother said. She tossed me a fresh book. “Try these instead.”
I trotted back outside and struck a match against the new matchbook.
Poof! The match went out yet again, and so did every other one in the book. How could I face my mother this time? I trudged into the kitchen with my shoulders slouched.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” my mother said. “I have one more matchbook. Let me try this time.”
I followed her outside. My mother took out a match and prepared to strike it. Then something caught her eye down in the burn barrel. A white envelope lying on top of the brown trash bag. A white envelope with the State of Maine seal!
My mother threw her arms around me. “The check!” she exclaimed.
I hugged her back, looked up at heaven and smiled at God’s angels, who must have been mighty out of breath after all that work.
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