I’m going to begin with a thumbnail sketch: 

My 7-year-old daughter came downstairs the other morning to find that my husband had cleaned out the oversized “comfy chair” in front of our woodstove while she slept. He’d taken up the seat cushion, removed the detritus that tends to gather underneath, and wiped the smudges and stains from the upholstery. 

“Daddy, where’s my baggie?” she asked.

“What baggie?”

“The one I put under the chair cushion!” she said, increasingly agitated.

“The baggie that you put under the chair cushion?” he repeated. “I don’t know. I probably threw it out when I was cleaning.”

“WHAT?!?” she wailed. “NOOOOO! Why would you throw that out?!? Why wouldn’t you ask first?”

“I’m sorry,” my husband replied, getting agitated himself. “I didn’t know it was yours. What was in it that was so important?”

“My fingernail!” she sobbed.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” post in The Addison Independent.