Several years ago our daughter Jane, who is a violinist, needed a new bow. Finding the right one can take a long time; musicians take them out on trial and guard them with their lives.
Jane was testing a particularly wonderful bow when she was getting her Masters at a conservatory in Manhattan. Over Easter weekend there were few students at school so Jane spent long hours in a practice room, comparing her old bow with the new one and falling in love with the latter. Late Saturday night she packed up her case and walked home to her apartment.
The next morning, Easter morning, she awoke as she often does, before the sun was up. Opening her case to begin practicing, she discovered to her horror that the new, expensive bow was not there. Panicked, heart pounding, she fled to the streets - so deserted on Sunday morning - and ran the five blocks to school. It was, of course, locked. Shaking and weeping, she called the conservatory only to receive a recording saying they would open on Monday. Fearing that the bow might have been stolen, her panic reached a fever pitch.
It was not lost on her that it was Easter morning, that she had run before dawn to a stone building not unlike a tomb, and that she had lost her new love.
And just when she thought she might pass out or throw up, a van drove up to the building and Louis, the head of maintenance, got out.
“Louis,” Jane said incredulous, “I can’t believe you are here.”
“You know,” he said, “I live in Jersey and I never work on Sunday morning but something just told me I’d better drive in today.”
He unlocked the door and Jane raced up the stairs to the practice room and there, lying on the piano was the bow. She threw her arms around Louis, “Louis,” she said, “You're my angel.”
And he was; he’d rolled the stone away.