No. 657/1226
Chosen by Flute at the Stories of Change, Caldera benefit event.
Thank you.
During the evening after receiving your matchbook, I arranged for a special dinner for Myrlie Evers-Williams, including seven others at the restaurant adjoining her hotel. As we all congregated by the front door, the wait-person asked me if we would like their special private dining room. I was delighted by that idea, and she left to go and prepare the room.
I followed after a few minutes, wanting everything to be perfect. I have such a profound respect and fondness for Myrlie, and I wanted it all to be just right. On one of the walls of the dining room was a sculpture of candles. The wait-person said she couldn’t find any matches to light them! So I pulled your matchbook out of my coat pocket and gave them to her. It was an unfamiliar gesture; I don’t usually have matches in my pocket!
I went back to the front door to check on my flock, and after a few minutes the wait-person returned to lead us into the room. It was beautiful — a whole wall of lighted candles. As we sat down, the wait-person came over to return the matches, and whispered “the matches actually kept breaking, so I couldn’t use them, but I saw how excited you were about the candles, so I went and hunted down some other matches.” I laughed at the thought of them breaking repeatedly, and she wondering why. I told her about your project, and said that I thought the matches might be 40 or 50 years old!
Paul and Mary Evers, who were next to me as I told my story, chimed in that their matchbook had a date of 1963 on it... And several of the other people around the table pulled out their matchbooks to check the dates too.
It was a lovely moment. There was surely a lot of love and gratitude around that dinner table. And even if the candles weren’t directly lit by your Dad’s matches, they were in spirit.
Tricia Snell
Portland, Oregon
