My two year old granddaughter’s face appeared on my phone before I could even answer. Alligator tears were streaming down her face and clearly something was wrong, something it seemed I was needed to fix. We, her mother on one end of the call and I on the other, eventually got Adela settled down enough to show me the problem. Some thirty-five years ago, I had made a small rocking chair for my daughter. Please understand that other than the fact that it was still in use all these years later, it was not exactly a work of craftsmanship, hardly worth the effort it would require to fix it. It was however, clearly loaded with sentimental value. My granddaughter Adela had now claimed it as her own. But accidents do happen. She had been towing the chair to her downstairs playroom when it found it’s way down the stairs the hard way. She was now showing me her rocking chair with the lower half of the rocker broken off, and thus the tears as she pleaded with her Opa to fix it!

Long story shortened, the chair was just returned to her, fixed, almost good as new! After a trip to the “furniture hospital”, aka my good friend Larry’s unbelievable wood shop, some glue, clamps and a patch, the chair now sits proudly in Adela’s playroom, once again allowing her to rock and coo her babies.

Things can be fixed and there in lies the point of this story. Even though we try our best to be careful, things break. Sometimes they are just that, things. Other times they are much more important, our relationships. When we believe they can’t be fixed, we tend to take the easy route and toss them away. All too often we don’t take the time nor put forth the effort to repair them. But remember, it is only a mistake if we fail to try. If there are things or relationships in your life that are broken, consider this. Look at the problem, consider any possible solution and then put forth the effort, even if it means swallowing your pride, and attack the problem.

It was only a chair, but what it represented for my granddaughter meant the world to her. Thank you Larry for helping me resurrect a crude little rocking chair and thank you Adela for having faith that I could.