One of my favorite hobbies is visiting garage sales. I don't get to go as often as I used to, but with all the signs around everywhere, I'm reminded of a garage sale I visited several years ago and the woman who was having it. It was a yard sale, the likes of which I had never seen. Everywhere I turned, from the very end of the driveway, to the far reaches of the garage, even spread clear across the yard was … scrapbooking stuff. Yes, I had found Mecca. When I first arrived, I really didn't know what I had found. My forward progress stopped at the end of the driveway, where I was going through a massive stack of old scrapbooking magazines, and excitedly making a pile. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, and I looked up. Wait a minute - what IS all this stuff? The magazines temporarily forgotten, I worked my way up the driveway through tables covered with stacks of papers, albums of every size, design and color, loose pages, and page protectors. Over here was an entire box filled with ribbons, many in unopened packages. Next to them were thousands of packages of brads, eyelets and snaps in every size and color. Cardstock and printed papers were stacked everywhere. I found maybe 100 or more paper packs, again all unopened, and in every shade of every color in every pattern imaginable, in bins and bags and boxes… and stickers - stickers bursting at the seams of every stack on every table - again, a few used here and there, but mostly brand new. Mixed with the papers were chipboards in the shapes of letters, animals, holiday themes, designs of all kinds. And stacks of brand-new album kits - for Christmas, Vacation, Swimming Pools, Celebrations, Wedding, Anniversary, Birthday Parties - you name it. Back in the garage, on the floor under a table were her bins of ink pads and stamps. The ink pads were still wrapped in their cellophane - the stamps as clean as the day she brought them home. Everywhere I turned was a bounty of unused scrapbooking supplies. I found an empty box and set to work filling it as quickly as I could. I actually had an appointment I had to get to, so I hurriedly paid for what few items I'd been able to gather, and made plans to come back. Later that day, when I pulled back up, I noticed for the first time, the Sold sign in the yard, and, with my curiosity brimming, I approached the woman who was having the sale. What could possibly make someone want to sell all this great stuff? So I started chatting with the woman to whom it all belonged. She was lovely, in her early 60s, friendly and warm. "So, did you own a store? Is that why you have all this?" I was serious, but she laughed in response. "No, I just gathered it all over the years. I still have my boxes of pictures all over the house. Somehow, I guess I never seemed to find the time to work on my albums; I always told myself I'd do my pictures after we retired." "Oh." I said, not wanting to pry, but just making conversation, "Is that why you're selling your house?" "Yes," she told me, "my husband and I are retiring to Florida." Now I was really confused. "But if you're retiring, why are you selling all your stuff? Won't your new house be big enough for everything? Or did you just stop scrapbooking?" And then this kind, sweet woman looked at me and said something I will never forget. "No, I love to scrapbook," she said quietly. "But I am losing my sight." I stood silent and stunned, as she continued to explain. She'd had surgeries to slow the process, but the macular degeneration in both her eyes was incurable. Already, her vision was growing more shadowy, and reading had become all but impossible. I looked all around me, at the heaping mounds of this woman's ambitions and plans, and all the projects she had hoped to accomplish, but never would, and my heart trembled. Now I saw the piles with new understanding. These wedding doo-dads and kits must have been intended to embellish her own wedding photos. The brightly colored party favor chipboards and stickers were going to commemorate the birthdays of her children. And the holidays, vacations and first days of school photos, still jumbled away in boxes under her bed and in the backs of closets… all of her plans and intentions would never come to pass. Just this. Just heaping mounds of supplies on card tables on her driveway. I was speechless. I wanted to embrace her and to take it all away from this woman - this stranger whose circumstances had turned her life upside down and dumped them into these boxes for strangers to rifle through and haggle over. I finished shopping, gave her a warm smile and wished her well. But I couldn't stop thinking about her, and her loss. I wanted to do something for her, but what? And then it came to me. The next day, I stopped by again, not to browse, but with a specific plan in mind. I went directly to a table in the middle of the driveway, and after digging a moment, found the kit I had been looking for. Out in the yard on another table was the album. I paid her and returned home. I went straight to my kitchen table, and got to work. I pulled out the formal floral papers and silvery ribbons, the delicate floral stickers and die cuts, and got to work, putting them into the album. Hopefully I thought, she and her husband wouldn't be moving at least for another week, and I would have enough time. I worked like a woman possessed, creating simple but elegant pages, versatile enough for a variety of photos. Five days later, I was finished. Nervously, I looked back over my pages one last time. I scooped up the album, grabbed my purse, and got into my car, all the while wondering if I was really doing the right thing, or if she would just think I was some kind of a nut. Didn't matter, I supposed - there was no turning back now. And so for the last time, I drove to her house. The driveway was cleared of course, but the Sold sign was still in the yard, and the front door was open. I climbed the stoop and knocked. When she came to the door, I suddenly realized I had no idea what to say. "Um - I don't know if you remember me, but I came to your garage sale last week, and I just felt so bad about your, um … sight, that I wanted to do something for you. And so Here," I said, thrusting the album at her. "I know you're not able to see well enough to make the pages yourself, so I made them for you. I thought that you and your husband might like to at least be able to get your wedding photos into an album; that it might make you feel a little better at least to know that one project was finished…" My words which had been streaming out of my mouth at break-neck speed, just trailed off, because suddenly it sounded so foolish - what was a blind woman going to do with a photo album? I stood there, almost apologetically, and tried to explain some more, but I just couldn't think of anything to say. What was I thinking? She stood silently before me for a moment, holding the album. "You made this for me? You don't even know me," she said wonderingly. And then, "Please come in - I want to take a look at it." I followed her into the brightly lit kitchen, and as she set the album on the table, she began to turn the pages, exclaiming over each one. She called her husband over, and they went through the pages again, together. We chatted a few minutes longer, and they asked me for my address so they could send a thank you card. I gave it to them, and said goodbye. They thanked me again and I left. Two months later, I received an envelope in the mail with a Ft. Meyers postmark. The letter inside had been typed on a computer and was printed in a large font.

I have the note pinned to my bulletin board. And whenever I find myself putting my pictures to the side for more "important" things, I remember Ellen and her time that ran out before she knew it, and I make another page - journal another story - and complete another memory. Today. Because I can.