Not as a receiver but as a giver.
A while back my mum suffered some mobility issues and I had to act pretty quickly to get her a walker and a wheelchair – luckily I’d been in Costco the day before and remembered seeing they had some sort of special on both – time was of the essence to I went and grabbed them.
Time passed, things improved and the wheelchair and walker ended up stashed in my container as a just-in-case and now she’s in a residential home they’re not needed any more.
I was going to chuck them in a charity shop, but it occurred to me that when I needed them I needed them straight away – I wouldn’t have gone browsing charity shops on the off chance I might find one.
So I decided to put them on ebay so they’d at least be found in a search. What became apparent was there was actually quite a dearth of mobility stuff available at the time people were struggling to get stuff either from the NHS or from retailers – I was expecting them to go for a modest price to someone local but there were loads of bids and both sold for pretty much what I paid for them new.
One buyer in particular had sent a few messages querying about the wheelchair, delivery and so on through the bidding, seemed a bit anxious, – and ended up winning. I just go the sense they were pretty desperate to get their hands on it. I’d listed / charged for 48hr courier just for cheapness for buyers but decided to send it guaranteed next day delivery instead. For some reason the little bit of joy you’d get when a little packet of haribo fell out of a CRC delivery popped into my head as I was packing it – so I popped into the supermarket to buy something nice to put in the parcel – stood looking at the shelves wondering what would be appropriate – haribo seemed a bit daft. On a whim I picked up the biggest box of Thornton chocs on the shelf – it was huge – almost as big as the wheelchair, probably cost half what I’d sold it for.
Put it in the parcel, just made the cut off at the PO and off it went.
A couple of days later I got a DM from the buyer. She told me her husband was terminally ill – she’d wanted the wheelchair so she could get him out of the house and see the sun one last time before he died but she hadn’t been able to get one for love nor money – she was so glad it had got there so quickly because he might only have a day or two left, she thanked me for the chocolates but explained he was too ill now to be able to eat them. I replied saying that they were for her – she’s looking after her husband so someone needs to look after her and that whenever she could she should take a moment, have a cup of tea and chocolate and remember happier times. We actually kept up a correspondence via ebay DMs. like pen friends, for a few days until he died and in the months that followed I’d get an occasional message from her.
It was all very sad and lovely.
Thing is at the same time as I’d posted the wheelchair I’d posted the walker to another ebayer and done the same thing – slipped in a massive box of chocolates. No acknowlegment – didn’t even leave feedback 🙂
