Guest Column

As you give, so shall you receive

Receiving the sweetest of gifts on Thanksgiving

By Lisa M. Petsche

One fall Friday evening four years ago, on the way to our cabin, my family discovered a wonderful new candy store when we stopped to stretch at a roadside plaza.

I subsequently wrote a slice-of-life vignette about our experience: how the store contained hundreds of varieties of sweets, many of them hard to find; how poring over the selection revived special memories of childhood treats; and how nice the owner was to my family, who had arrived moments before closing time. I submitted the piece to my local newspaper, and it was published a short time later.

Since we weren’t expecting to return to the cabin for a while, I mailed the owner a clipping, along with a brief note. Then I forgot about it.

Two weeks later, just before dinner, my husband ceremoniously placed in my arms a sizable cardboard carton weighing at least ten pounds. It had been delivered by courier.

Puzzled, I quickly opened the box to discover dozens of varieties of sweets.

It was a miniature candy store in a box. Every item I had mentioned in my article was there, plus many others.

Even more amazing, though, was the enclosed handwritten letter from Rita, the candy shop’s owner.

She eloquently wrote about how, on the Friday afternoon following publication of my article (of which she’d been unaware), customers began arriving in much greater numbers than usual. This continued on Saturday.

At one point every person who walked into the store over a four-hour period mentioned my newspaper vignette as the reason for their being there.

Many of these first-timers had the article in hand. Knowing the store was outside the newspaper’s circulation area, several offered up their original or a photocopy. Many more who didn’t have the article with them offered to mail it when they returned home. (By the time she wrote the letter, Rita had more than a dozen copies.) She and her staff were overwhelmed.
The heightened traffic flow repeated itself the next weekend.

Up until then, sales had been disappointing, and Rita had been worried about the store’s future. The surprise publicity and increased business resulting from the candy store vignette gave her cause for optimism.

And so she continued to expand her selection of treats—to more than 900 varieties by the end of that first year.

Meanwhile, Rita had to order extra stock to maintain her supply of humbugs and other candies I had singled out in the article. The increase in sales helped offset some of her initial start-up costs. (Today the store is flourishing; its variety of sweets now numbers in the thousands, and there’s a Web site with international ordering.)

Little did I know when I penned the candy store vignette that it would have such an impact. I was simply writing an anecdote about a memorable family experience, aiming to entertain rather than inform. My mention of the shop’s location was incidental.

The unexpected feedback boosted my confidence as a freelance writer, and gave me a renewed appreciation of—and excitement about—the power of the written word. It was gratifying to realize that, however inadvertently, I was able, through my writing, to help the owner of a fledgling business.

That she took the time and effort to let me know this, and to thank me in such a big way, was truly heart-warming. Moreover, Rita thoughtfully passed along customers’ positive comments about my newspaper articles.

I was moved to tears by the time I finished the last paragraph. Only then did I realize that the date on her letter was Thanksgiving Day.

What a wonderful Thanksgiving gift the candy store vignette turned out to be—for both of us.
It also served as a powerful reminder that seemingly small endeavors can have a big impact. You just never know when, or how.

Lisa M. Petsche is a freelance writer specializing in spirituality and family life.