The Chainsaw

I was sitting on the floor working on homework when someone knocked on the front door. My mother answered the door. It was someone selling tickets for a fund raiser they were having in a neighboring town about 15 miles away. My mother told him that she couldn’t afford to buy a ticket. He seemed desperate to sell her one, but she was unwilling to buy one.

I had one dollar in my pocket and was tempted to buy a ticket, mostly because he seamed so desperate to sell them. The other reason was one of the prizes was a chainsaw. We needed to get wood for the winter, so we really needed a chainsaw. My father had passed away the year before and all the chainsaws he owned went with his business partner. I knew wood was our only means of keeping warm through the cold winters.

I remember my mothers concerned conversations with my older brother about what to do for wood and how to get it without a chainsaw. She had asked some of the neighbors about borrowing their saws, but they were reluctant. Perhaps for concern that only her young boys would be running it. They all talked about helping us, but no one seemed to have time.

I was just about to buy a ticket, when he said “OK” and left. I thought, it was just as well, “we probably wouldn’t win and why waste the only dollar I had”. I knew what my mother didn’t yet know what to do for winter wood. Perhaps she truly didn’t have any money, or like me thought we had no chance of winning and didn’t want to waste what little money she had.

Some time later she got a phone call telling her that she had won the chainsaw. To which she replied “There must be a mistake, we didn’t buy a ticket”. The man replied “All I know is that I have a ticket here with your name on it”.

We never found out how they got a ticket with my mothers name on it, or how it ended up being the one drawn. But we desperately need the saw. It allowed us to get the necessary wood we needed for the winter, so my mother could keep her seven children warm. Perhaps it was God’s way of rewarding us for the service my dad had given before he died, see http://omegathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/12/white-christmas.html.