The package contained only the book and the note. It’s true that my classroom Bible had vanished, a New International Version, but that would have been at least six years ago before I retired from teaching full time and had to clear my classroom book shelves. I usually kept a Qur’an on my shelves too. I am interested in scripture. I am respectful of sacred text.

It had been a hard few days for Gary and I. The husband of Gary’s favorite cousin called early in the week to let him know she had died that morning. Chris was a wonderful person and Gary will miss her terribly. My brother was in the ICU for over a week after viral meningitis led to a stroke. (He has not willingly spoken to me in nearly 20 years, so this came second hand. I cringed every time the phone rang, for fear of what the news might be. I am not allowed to visit.) And then a more mundane stressor when a bill arrived and was high enough beyond the estimate to send me into financial panic-mode. (I had time to cancel a furniture order, and this is where I say: It’s only money.) Then the owner of a First Nations gallery in B.C. called Sunday morning to apologize for not sending the scarf I’d ordered. I’d forgotten completely about it, but before I could ask him to cancel this order too, he was telling me how his mother had been in hospital and I was telling about my brother. He described waiting in that plain basement room closed off from the rest of the hospital. “I’ve been in that room,” I told him. I meant when Gary had surgery long ago and we thought it might be bone cancer. It wasn’t. (His mom is doing fine post-op too.)

A couple of days before, I stubbed my little toe so hard I missed my Sunday run, could not even have a walk.

And then after our walk yesterday morning (and a short run—yay!), Gary went to pick up mail and the Bible was there. [I should say at this point that I have many Bibles in many translations, the New Jerusalem is among my favorites. Gary has others old and new and in a dozen languages.]

We both recognized the handwriting as being similar to one of my oldest friends. She sent me the Dorothy West postcard in celebration of the first day a postcard was sent on 1st October in the nineteenth century. That arrived yesterday too, but she’s in Canada.

I have no idea who returned the book.

What I do know is that no student should ever suffer for taking a book from me. To be entirely truthful, I brag sometimes about how many copies of Neruda’s poetry never came home. Four? Five? Each was borrowed and then lent on and on until no one knew where it was anymore. Erdoes and Ortiz’s American Indian Myths and Legends was another one that I had to buy over and over. Jordan returned another book in such a battered condition that I vowed to myself never to lend him another, but the truth is, I would have lent anything I had at school. The books I most treasured stayed on my shelves at home. The ones I took to school were there so they could be read.

You have forgiveness, dear Bible-thief, and since you gave the book back, it was merely a loan. Not stolen. You borrowed my book, that’s all. I am glad for it. You might have kept till I died and that would have been fine too. Pages are turned down at the Sermon on the Mount, which is among my favorites. Thank you.

You remind me.

Forgive ourselves. Forgive our self. Recognize the error and repent and be forgiven. Jesus would tell you the same. Own that. Move on, do better, appreciate that every day is a new opportunity. There. Feel better. I do.