Today is my birthday, I had a wonderful day in Vermont – sweet gifts, a birthday dinner, breakfast in bed. And I got to give Maria a present also, a gift with a special story. We were in the Brattleboro, Vermont Thrift Shop Friday and I saw a glass case by the cash register with a sterling silver heart, a necklace with a pin attachment. I saw it from a distance, a silver heart, it just called out to me, as gifts for Maria sometimes do.

I asked the cashier to see it and she said it was special, she told me to look for the  inscription on the back: “I Cherish You.” I asked to see it, it cost $20, the cashier said it had a wonderful story to go with it.  I asked her what it was.

This is the story: An elderly woman – she was in her 90’s – brought it into the the thrift shop a few weeks ago, she had a terminal illness, she was going to a nursing home, she did not imagine she would come out, she was saying goodbye – she was a regular in the thrift shop, also a favorite haunt of Maria’s when we are in town, which is not often.

The woman’s name was Patricia. Her husband’s name was Peter.

She wanted someone who was in love to have the pin. She had one love in her life, she said, and she married Peter and lived happily with him for nearly 50 years. He died, a long time ago, she said, but she loved him every bit as much now as she did when they first meet, they never stopped loving one another, through all the passages of life.

Such love, she told the cashier, herself a romantic,  does not fade.

Patricia’s only daughter died some years ago, and now,  Patricia was clearing their home out of all her possessions.  She had no one to give the heart to.  It was her time. She wanted this pin to live, not end up in some drawer. She wanted it to hang over the heart of someone else, as it had hung over her heart nearly all of her life. It did not belong in the nursing home, she said, it belong over the heart of another woman, a woman who loved someone.

I knew I had to buy it for Maria. She told me several times yesterday that it was my birthday, and I was not to buy her any gifts, and I lied to her and told her I hadn’t – she was suspicious because she saw me talking to the cashier. At lunch at Shin-La, a Korean restaurant in Brattleboro that we both like very much, I took it out and gave it to her, and I said “I Cherish You,” and my birthday is such a good time to give you this.

She just smiled and shook her head. I knew it would be a wonderful birthday, and it was. I had already received the most wonderful gift anyone could possible get.