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The
Beat-up Mailbox
by
Susan Brown
Editors'
Note: Submit your missionary stories to our Meridian Missionary
Journal editor, Peggy Proctor at missionaryjournal@meridianmagazine.com
When
my husband was called to be the ward mission leader, we accompanied
the missionaries to teach a young single sister. As they described
the woman to me, my heart began to pound. It couldn't be her.
My husband accepted
a job in the Northwest which moved us from St. George, Utah to North
Bend, Washington, a small town east of Seattle. Many things in North
Bend were new to me. There were rows of mailboxes at the end of
paved streets, homes entirely heated by wood burning stoves, trees
everywhere and rain almost every day.
It was a Saturday
in January when the moving van pulled up to our rental home. The
neighbors were having a birthday party for a nine-year-old boy.
The yard was filled with Harley Davidsons and leather vested, shirtless
men with ponytails and beers. What a culture shock!
One of the first
orders of business, after the move, was to establish our mail. There
was a waiting list for P.O. boxes, but the mail carrier for our
route happened to know of an abandoned mailbox at the end of our
gravel road. She suggested I pound out a few dents and use it while
we waited. The pavement ended less than half-mile from our house
and the pot holed, gravel road that led beyond rattled when some
of the neighbors drove past. Springtime was approaching, and it
was early in the morning sometime just before six o'clock. The daylight
was breaking when I heard the familiar rattle and crash of a truck
with a toolbox in the bed as it came down the road.
This time it
seemed unusually noisy, and I soon discovered why. The truck screeched
to a halt and the door slammed. Then, still in my sleepy morning
fog, I heard the cursing and threatening of the driver, our neighbor,
a single woman with long beautiful hair and a distinctive mixed
French and Russian accent. She banged on the back door and why I
felt compelled to answer it I don't know. I could barely piece together
the threat of a lawsuit against us on behalf of her daughter and
daughter's husband that had been killed a few years before.
Then I looked
down the driveway to her truck. The mailbox was tied to the back
of it! She had pulled the box out and dragged it all the way down
the road. Both my legs and voice were shaking as I tried to explain
that the Post Office had told us to use that mailbox. She informed
me, as she stomped back to her truck, that the Post Office didn't
own her mailbox and she would sue us both. We erected our own mailbox.
My husband tried
to apologize and on one occasion to make amends. He delivered several
wheelbarrow loads of cedar shingles over to her woodshed. She wasn't
home so he stacked them and left, all the time working to the angry
barking of her part-wolf dog. Later that same day we heard the rattle
of a wheelbarrow. There she stood with her wheelbarrow loaded with
shingles. This time my husband went out to meet her. She cursed
again and told him never to enter her property!
The dog was
chained to the doorframe and nearly pulled it out in his frenzied
barking at this trespasser. She dumped the cedar shingles in our
driveway and left angrier than ever. Never did her truck and toolbox
or the put-put of her Volkswagen Beetle, with its distinctively
colored left front fender, pass by, but my knees would shake and
adrenalin pump through my veins.
We moved a few
months later to another small town about 10 miles closer to Seattle.
My husband was called to be Ward Mission Leader and about nine months
later, the missionaries asked my husband and I to accompany them
to teach a young single sister. While riding to her home, I asked
the missionaries many questions about her. What did she look like?
She had long beautiful hair and spoke with a distinct accent, maybe
French. Her name sounded Russian. My heart began to pound. The missionaries
said she had three young daughters. It couldn't be her, but I asked
for her address. Though scared, I felt quite safe when I learned
that it wasn't her address.
When we arrived
at the meeting, my husband pulled into the driveway directly behind
the familiar Volkswagen of days past! Coming out the back door was
our former neighbor!! The teaching appointment was with her widowed
daughter. The mother left when we moved the car out of her way,
and we went into the house. After introductions, I could feel no
peace until a full confession was made. Anushka, laughed and had
no malice whatsoever for the incident and I felt somewhat better.
Anushka explained that they had left the mailbox open in case any
more papers came regarding the litigation that followed her husband's
death as a logger, but it had been over two years and nothing had
come for quite some time before that. Still, I secretly hoped that
I would never run into her mother again.
Well, we did
meet again. In fact, we met at Anushka's baptism. Her Volkswagen
pulled ahead of us onto the dead-end lane that led to the church.
She missed the right hand turn to the church, so my husband waited
at the corner to direct her after she turned around.--- As we walked
into the church together, my heart still pounded. I couldn't say
anything to her about the mailbox incident, but my husband finally
broached the subject. To my astonishment, she said she had no hard
feelings.
I really enjoyed
the friendship I began with Anushka, but a few short months later
we moved again, this time to Oregon. We saw Anushka once about a
year later when we went back for a visit. She had married and was
happy. I've never seen or heard from either her or her mother over
the last ten years, but I learned something from this experience.
Always treat
others kindly even when they do not respond. If you have wronged
someone, unintentionally or not, work to establish peace. One never
knows when a person will know of your affiliation with the Church
and perhaps judge it or your claim to Christianity by your behavior.
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© 2001 Meridian
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