The Twins

It was a sad intake. A very lovely woman sitting at her vanity, putting make-up on. "I need all the help I can get these days." She had gone in for a check-up full of hope and happiness and emerged without either. "I am home to decline, or recline or whatever is going to happen." Every time I tried to help her, she rebuffed me, ever more gently. "Don't mind me, I am just miserable."

After establishing that she was a Vancouver girl, from a certain area, we chatted a bit. She asked me my mother's name and it seemed familiar to her. The home we were in was one of the nicest I have visited. Not overly grande nor garishly large or self-consciously patishe, just quietly elegant in an excellent area. Each room was exceedingly tastefully decorated in that timeless style that people who just know what looks right have. Jackie Kennedy could have sat comfortably in any room of that home. She went to her sitting room and I came to join her. As I walked in to the room, I stopped and gaped.
"What is it?" she asked.

There, in the place of honour, sat a highly polished ladies writing desk. It was the identical twin to the one I have. Afer I told her I had the same desk she immediatly said: "No that's not possible. This was my grandmother's desk. She died in 1917."
I told her mine was from my mother's family and I believed it was from my Nana who died in the 1950s in her 90s. I could see they were still unconvinced so I told her I would take a picture of my desk on my cellphone to show her. And then I would like to take a picture of hers for prosperity.

Over the years I have been in hundreds of homes, probably thousands by now. I ave never seen another desk like *ours*. Interesting coincidence though.