It was 1991. I commuted to teach at a high school some 45 miles away, and my car was old, starting to have problems. I had asked the mechanic who kept patching it up to let me know when it was time to worry about actually breaking down for good on the unpopulated roads I had to travel to work, and he’d just told me the week before—Dena, it’s time for a new car. Oh, no! I had no place in my tight budget for a car payment. Moreover, I’d overspent on my credit card and was about 2,000 in debt there. (That’s a big deal for someone on my budget. I could only pay the interest.)

Two bits of necessary background information in order to appreciate what happened next:

First: I have no family. I was rejected as a child by everyone except my mother—a long, painful, and very different story from the one I’m relating here—and for several reasons beyond my control, Thanksgivings and Christmases are often very hard for me. On this Thanksgiving, I’d decided not to stay home alone and feel sorry for myself but to go work in the soup kitchen for the day.

Second: Many years before, around 1977 or 78, my mother found my paternal grandmother. She was living in a little home with her husband on the Suwannee, very old and very afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease. She wanted to meet me. I went. And thereafter I visited her every so often until I joined the faculty of faraway University of New Orleans. When I visited her, it was awkward sometimes and hard to communicate. I never asked embarrassing questions like, Why did you abandon me, or questions about my father or grandfather. I had been raised never to bring up anything that might make someone uncomfortable.

So, anyway, while I was in New Orleans, around 1984, I heard that she had died.

Now fast-forward to Thanksgiving Day in 1991: My car is terminal and I’m in debt (actually, conditions that helped me to avoid self-pity about having no family), and I’m on my way out the door to go work in the soup kitchen for the homeless. The phone rings and I answer it:

Am I Dena Hunt and do I know a Pauline Raney? Yes, I am, and that was my grandmother, who died many years ago.

 

Okay, directly to the point now. It was a private detective who called. He made a living by finding lost heirs. It turned out that, without telling me, my grandmother had taken out a CD jointly in her name and mine. It had been drawing interest for all those years. About 30 days following the detective’s phone call, after sending him certified documents, I received—tax-free—a cashier’s check, exactly enough money to buy a new car, pay off my Visa card, and $50 left over after the detective’s commission.

I bought a new Subaru “Legacy.” It was a station wagon, which turned out to be very good for transporting rescued abused and abandoned dogs to their new homes.

True story. It was Thanksgiving in 1991.