been better.

I went to a yard sale one Saturday with my mom back in my home town. It was in the suburbs, in one of those older communities where the houses don't all look the same. The carport was covered with various bits and pieces, an overpriced telescope, some clothes, a box of odds and ends, but nothing interesting. The woman manning (womanning?) the sale told us that there was a lot more inside the house, so I stepped inside the door adjoing the carport into a bare living room. Most of the major furniture was gone; only a couple of cabinets remained, and these were covered with knick-knacks priced to sell. There were a lot of figurines, mostly porcelain or ceramic unicorns and the like. There were also a lot of Chinese-themed objects, including a couple of small shadow boxes with landscapes carved out of cork. There were two beautiful velvet paintings, one of a Chinese landscape and another with a bullfighting theme, but they were more than what I wanted to pay for them. The bareness of the room indicated that the people were probably moving and trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible.

While I was looking around, some other shoppers made small talk with the residents. Besides the woman was a man. Someone politely asked him how he was doing, just making friendly small talk, and he mumbled, "Been better." Trying to be friendly and cheerful, I turned to ask him if he'd been worse, but his defeated posture stopped me. He had a long, raised scar running across the top of his scalp, and his hair was all gone except for some coarse blond strands. Maybe this guy had been worse, but I knew I hadn't. Sometimes even I am able to shut up in time.

Strangers continued to come inside and look around while I made my way around the living room, examining knick-knacks. Cheerful, Southern strangers after a bargain, they made more conversation with the couple. "Wow, you folks moving?" one asked as he looked around the bare room.

"No, we're just trying to cover medical expenses," the woman said frankly. I liked her. She wasn't asking for anything, nor was she making a big deal about what most certainly was a very big deal. She was just working on getting by. I was immediately depressed by the idea of having a yard sale to pay medical bills. These people were coming to the end of their ropes.

I, not knowing anything to say and so saying nothing, bought a wall decoration that may or may not have been real jade but was a steal regardless at $4. I didn't try to negotiate the price down or argue at all, because I probably would have paid more. I paid with a fiver and felt bad for accepting my change.

Now it hangs in my room, it's beautiful, and I love it and don't even care all that much if it's real jade, because it's real enough to fool me. It used to belong to a sick man who had lots of lovely things from other countries and maybe he loved it, too, but now he's got more important things on his mind. Maybe he'll die soon and maybe he already has, but at least someone, even some smart-aleck girl who has never had anything very bad happen to her, loves his picture and knows that it has a story, even if she doesn't know all of it.