It was of little value. A simple soft sculpture of a girl morphing into a butterfly. A piece by a well-known Victoria BC artist that somehow found its way to a thrift shop and from there into the hands of someone who saw it as deserving of a place better than by the used Tupperware.

Now it’s gone.

It was taken from the door of my friend’s apartment where it had greeted visitors and reminded them of the brave journey of the person who lives inside.

Why do people steal things? To sell? To keep? To be mean and deprive someone else of a small comfort? My friend’s precious possession had little material value but it meant a lot to her. I hope that the person who has it now will make it a part of their life. That it will change them. Perhaps it will become a gift to a child. Will it bring tears to anyone’s eyes again? Will it someday offer peace to an aging heart?

Whatever, it must be let go.

The stolen greeter was a worthy representative of all of the things inside my friend’s apartment. Cast-off chairs, tables and pictures, odd attempts at art, mis-matched spoons and much more. A smorgasbord of things deemed by the previous owner worthless or even worse, not up to current technology.

My friend’s apartment is crammed in every corner with scars, imperfections, an uncertain past and more than anything a sense of forgiveness for whatever went before. It is a place where old becomes new and where hope is rewarded in surprising ways.

As hard as it was to lose the lady on the door before her transformation was complete, we both know that she had more than filled her purpose in our lives and we choose to believe that whoever took her will be better for knowing her.

Old things, ignored things, broken things. Things badly but lovingly repaired. Things laughed at and cried over. Things that provide the glue that holds a life together. These are the things my friend is drawn to.

And the reason I am drawn to her.