A Holiday Story

Thank you to Lowell for sharing this lovely story that embraces the holidays in such a beautiful way.

Hello Mr. Converse-
After visiting the Artisans Co-op in Yellow Springs today, I have a story for you of which you are very much a part of.
Five years ago you came to my home and cut some pieces of a most wonderful oak tree and fashioned two beautiful bowls from that oak. One of those bowls went to my daughter, Elizabeth, and one bowl I kept for myself and it has a home on my mantle. Your artistry meant so much to the both of us because the tree and those bowls were so much a part of our remembrance of my husband Joe, who had recently passed away at that time.
During the interim years, Elizabeth and I both had struggled with losing my good husband of thirty years and her very perfect Father. Elizabeth, who still lives in Phoenix, was very hurt losing her father and on occasion would rail at me in abject anger. I realized for awhile, it was good we lived so far away from each other! And, as human nature does repair itself, Elizabeth and I slowly healed.
Last September, I was out in Phoenix for a visit and Elizabeth, being a pilot and flight instructor, surprised me. She put her arm around me and said, "I know how Dad and I kept you from having the fun we had as pilots and for that, I ask forgiveness." She walked over to a hanger, opened the hangar door, and there was a beautiful 6-seater Piper. "Now it is your turn to feel the thrill of lifting a plane off the ground," she said. Well, Lowell, it really was thrilling! Spent the day flying around the desert; the colors, the mountains, the shadows of those wide open spaces are very etched on my mind.
This year I struggled to find something to send out to Phoenix for Christmas for Elizabeth and her husband, Robert. Somehow the cold, blustery days lately just matched my very non-holiday mood until today. Maybe it was the doe I saw tiptoe-ing through my backyard this morning because the day was magic. To raise my spirits, I went over to Yellow Springs to look at things of beauty. For some reason and as if compelled, I walked straight into the Co-op door and directly over to this lovely walnut plate in a square brace. It looked like the desert, its shadows and its sand I had flown over in Arizona! And there, on this beautiful plate, was the tiniest plane.... artist: Mr. Lowell Converse. Well, my Friend, I gasped and also dropped a tear...The Most Perfect Present for my daughter is on its way, in all its beauty, to Phoenix. And again, I have you to thank for starting my Holiday spirit.
Thank you and a most wonderful Christmas to you and yours,
Becky P.

The piece is shown here (middle row, far left)