An Unexpected Gift

I sat staring at the list of monthly bills, wondering what more I could do. I needed another $300 to pay that last utility bill, and I didn’t know where I was going to get it. Not being a stranger to financial difficulties, I had become pretty adept at “stretching every dollar”. I knew a lot of tricks, like putting off one bill to pay a more urgent one, or waiting until the last possible minute to pay a bill before there would be consequences, such as a late charge or the power being shut off. But I had run out of tricks this time, and that $300 utility bill had to be paid.

My husband had left several months earlier, after twenty-five years of marriage. I had managed to keep the house for the sake of our four children still living with me, but I was really struggling financially. I’d gotten a job in a local daycare center, but I was only bringing home $350 a week – a fraction of what I needed to maintain our household.

My husband wasn’t much help. Mentally and physically disabled, he had applied for federal disability benefits, but the process was taking months. He would send “child support” occasionally – but I’d never know how much he would send, or when he’d send it.

I was grateful I had good credit; I was able to buy food, necessary clothing, and even pay some bills with my credit cards. However, there was a limit to what I could pay with credit – and this $300 bill needed to be paid with real money.

I decided to get up and get some chores done. I’d done all I could with the finances for now, and staring at the bills wasn’t going to solve my dilemma. After doing some laundry, I thought I’d go see if the mail had come. Though I usually hated all the “junk mail” I received - all those flyers for stuff I didn’t need, or home improvements I couldn’t afford – this time I was hoping junk mail was all I’d find. With the mood I was in, the last thing I wanted to see was another bill.

I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a pile of envelopes and flyers. Sure enough, someone wanted to sell me a new roof! I almost laughed out loud! Rifling through the rest of the mail, I suddenly realized that one of the envelopes looked like a card, with a handwritten address. Did I get real mail? From an actual person? Since the advent of the internet, receiving greeting cards or letters through the regular mail was a rare event! Then again, perhaps this was also an advertisement, cleverly made to look like personal correspondence. I’d gotten such cards in the past.

I walked back into the house, dropped the rest of the mail on the kitchen table, and opened the mystery envelope. It WAS a real card! A beautiful little greeting card decorated with colorful flowers. How cheery! I opened the card, eager to see who had sent it, and what the message might be – but there was no message. Not a word was written inside the card – but as I opened it, three crisp one hundred dollar bills fell out. I stared, open-mouthed. Three hundred dollars. Sent to me anonymously. Exactly what I needed to pay that last bill.

I studied the card again from all angles, trying to figure out who it could be from, but there was no message and no signature. I looked at the postmark on the envelope – perhaps that would give me a clue of who may have sent this much-needed money. The postmark was from a city near us, the city where all the surrounding towns’ mail went to be sorted. This card could have come from any of several towns.

Most of my friends and acquaintances knew of my general circumstances. They knew that my husband had left; some of them knew I was struggling financially. But I had not told anyone of my specific need at that moment. Even if I had, that card had to have been sent days before I even knew I would need exactly that amount of money!

As much as I wished I knew who had sent the money so I could tell them how specifically it had met my financial need, I knew I probably never would find out. Whoever it was very obviously did not want me to know.

Accepting this wonderful gift, I flew to the bank, deposited the cash, and paid the bill.

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Fast forward a few years. I was doing better financially now; I had opened a daycare in my own home, which paid better than working in a center. My husband’s disability claim had finally been approved, so I was receiving regular “child support” payments. We were by no means wealthy, but the major bills were being paid.

I knew of a friend in another state who was struggling as I had been. Recently separated from her husband, she had shared that she was having trouble keeping the oil tank filled. One day, I realized I had a little more money than I needed to pay that month’s bills. I felt that this was the time to pass on that wonderful gift – the gift I had been given exactly when I needed it. I wrote out a check for three hundred dollars and mailed it to my friend.