For weeks, I was scouring the ads in Facebook Market Place for a wood desk. It had to be a certain size and made out of wood. I was looking for something to give new life to and ultimately have a workspace in the den.
One Saturday morning, I came across this post with a picture of these pieces of furniture curbside, bulk pick up was Monday. I woke up my son and drove to the address. The desk was full of stuff. Mostly old office supplies, random papers and pictures. We packed up the car and went home.
Once getting it in our driveway, I cleaned out the draws as I was unloading. Most of the stuff went in the trash, but the pictures and little mementos of a career at Exxon tugged at my heartstrings. I put them in an envelope for further investigation.
The photos came in the house with me and I started researching a man who I believed may have at one time owned this desk. I did a few searches and it appears that this man was alive. I did a little more searching of a newspaper clipping from the desk and realized that this man’s wife passed and they had two children. I searched for the children. I found the son living in the same town I got the desk from. Yay! I reached out to him on Facebook on October 4, 2021 – the day Facebook went down for 4 hours. I realized this over a month later. I sent another message on 11/8/2021. I repeat the first message saying I’m not sure if he got the first message as I sent it the day FB went down. We made arrangements for him to come to my husband’s retail store whenever it was convenient for him. He indicated that he worked 6 days a week and would try to get to the shop to pick them up. I got to work on the desk and this is how it turned out.
Fast forward to March 2023, while at the shop, I see the envelope and am like, he never picked this up. I looked through the photos one more time of this man’s father’s life and say I’ll reach out again. When I searched for this man, I found out his father had passed away a week before my last message! I reached out to him again and I’m glad I did, he said he could not find my original message and was glad I messaged him. He gave me the green lite to send the envelope to him.
I dropped them off last week. I met his wife as she was walking up the walkway. They were very grateful to have the photos back. My heart is full because they get a little piece of this man’s life story back.
Awwwww! What an amazing story! And the desk turned out great!