The dream case

While gazing at a lovely antique display case, yesterday, I remembered a miracle. 32 years have passed. It is time to share because we all need to expect and invite miracles.
At that time, Mark, my husband and I were opening our shop, Crystal Essence in its first location other than a small room in our home. We knew nothing about doing this, really. With $2000 to cover first and last month’s rent and everything else, we proceeded. Help came from many places. Our little upstairs location on Railroad St in Great Barrington came together in simplicity with the help of others. We still had the balance of many quartz crystals that had been put into our basement the year before when we were asked to sell them. Again the number 2000 comes up. 2000 lbs. This is another miracle story. So, after a year, we still had many crystals and some other stones that we had acquired. I might add that I did have a deep affinity for stones that was realized in my last year of college in 1971, as I walked into a lab for a Physical Geography class that I signed up for. To my surprise, the room was filled with stones. At that moment, I fell in love with those 150 rocks that I had never seen before and their names etched permanently in my memory. I could not stop touching them. This is another miracle story for another time.
During the process of getting together this shop, with help from a carpenter friend, Don, things proceeded well and within our budget. I needed a display case, I was told. If we were to have the jewelry provided by the man who put the crystals in our house, we needed a display case. At first, I was sure we did not need such a thing. And I did not like the way display cases looked! But then it became clear. No Case, No Jewelry! Well, I was busy and this was on the back burner.
One night, I was immersed in my dream world. I stood in front of a dark brown, case that was about 6 feet wide, 2’ deep and stood above my waist. There were crystals and gems in it. I was picking up beautiful stones and looking at them. Realizing they were mine and yet not understanding how, I was appreciating the beauty. The case was calling to me and as I woke up, I was saying that was the kind of case we needed.
I asked around to people who knew more about antiques than I did. There was a Saturday radio show to call into for antiques. I tried but got nowhere fast. It seemed daunting, time consuming and nothing my budget could deal with.
One weekend day, we took a break and drove to Northampton. Walking through the well known Thorne’s Market, I stopped into a store that I often wandered in and out of in 5 minutes just to look. I noticed a case that was similar but shorter than the dream case. I pointed it out and asked the
employee if it might be for sale. She said, “No”. Then I wandered a bit further into the store and there it was. The very, same case as in the dream! As my mouth dropped in amazement, I said to Mark, “this is the case in the dream.” The same employee spoke to me. “That one is for sale,” She exclaimed. She gave me the owner’s phone number.
A few days later, I called the man. I did not think I was going to be able to come up with the money for this. It looked expensive. So I hesitated to call him, at first. When I told him that I had seen the case on the weekend, he asked, “Are you the one with the dream?” Yes, it was me. He let me know the case was $165. That seemed fair enough. I was surprised but then I shared that I could not imagine how I would get this to Great Barrington. It was very large and had so much glass. He called me back. He had 2 people who would do it for $40 and he immediately offered to reduce the price to $125. They dissembled it, drove it and delivered and resembled it.
This was our first shop and we brought that case to our present location three years later. We had it for a very long time until a certain flood would cause us to remodel and we had to let go of it about 10 years later.
And when I saw one yesterday, that reminded me of it, I remembered the Dream Case. With Gratitude to those helping hands that we cannot always see, Thank You!