I am going to be honest with you. I almost scrolled right past it.

I had seen the post in a Catholic mothers' group I follow on Facebook. A woman named Rosemary had written about a small Christian jewelry store up north somewhere. Faithful & Blessed, it was called. The man who runs it is a priest, Father Michael Quinn, and after twenty-three years he is closing the doors for good and giving away what is left before he shuts them.

My first thought was the same one you are probably having right now. Here we go. Another sale. Another sob story. Another one of those Facebook ads pretending to be something it is not. Nothing is ever really free.

I closed the tab.

That was a Tuesday. By Friday I had opened it three more times.

What kept pulling me back was the way Rosemary wrote. She was not writing like somebody selling something. She wrote about the little handwritten note that came in the box. About the weight of the crucifix in her hand, how it was nothing like the thin ones that turn your neck green. About a small prayer card the priest tucks into every parcel. Who does that anymore?

I am sixty-seven years old. I taught third grade in Cobb County for thirty-one years before I retired. I lost my husband Raymond four years ago this March. I have worn a little gold cross since my confirmation, and about ten years ago the chain finally gave out and I never did replace it. You tell yourself you will get around to it, and then you just don't.

So on that Friday evening, with a cup of tea and absolutely no intention of spending a dime, I sat down and read the whole Faithful & Blessed website properly.

The part that got me

There is a page on the site where Father Quinn explains, in his own words, why he is closing. I read it twice. He is not a young man. He built this store in 2003 because he believed people of faith deserved something real to wear, not the cheap hollow things that break in a year. He chose every single piece himself for twenty-three years.

Import costs finally made it impossible to keep going the way he always had, and he said he would rather close than start selling something cheaper and pretend it was the same. I understood that completely. That is a man of a certain generation. My Raymond was the same way about his tools.

"I would rather these go home with people who will wear them and pray with them than sit in boxes in a back room."

That was the moment I stopped thinking of it as a sale and started thinking of it as a last chance. Because here is what did not fully land on me until later: when Father Quinn says he is closing, he means it. There is no son taking over. No new collection in the spring. When the last piece goes home, the website comes down and that is the end of it.

I ended up ordering ten

I sat down meaning to order one cross for myself. One. To finally replace the one I lost.

But then I started thinking about my people. My daughter Kathleen, who has had a hard couple of years and could use something to hold onto. My son Michael, who has never owned a real St. Michael medal and shares the name. My granddaughter Grace, who is being confirmed in the spring. My sister June. My neighbor Dot, who lost her husband last year and understands. My other granddaughter. My son-in-law.

By the time I was finished I had a corpus crucifix, two rosary bracelets, a Miraculous Mary pendant, a St. Michael medal, a St. Benedict ring, a Sacred Heart bracelet, and a few more besides. Ten pieces in all. Every one of them free. I paid only the shipping. I sat there and did the math three times because I did not believe it.

What I noticed when they arrived

They came in a plain brown box on a Wednesday, and the first thing I found inside was a handwritten note. Not a printed receipt. A real note, in pencil, thanking me and saying a short prayer for whoever would wear the pieces. I have not gotten a handwritten anything in the mail in years. I sat down at the table and had a little cry, which I was not expecting to do over a jewelry order.

The second thing I noticed was the weight. When you pick up one of those drugstore crosses it feels like nothing, like a bottle cap. This crucifix had substance to it. Real weight in the palm. You can feel the difference the moment you hold it, the same way you can feel the difference between real silver and a play spoon.

The rosary bracelets were genuine stone, not plastic beads painted to look like stone. The tiger's eye one for Kathleen had that shimmer that runs through the real thing. Michael's St. Michael medal had every bit of detail sharp and clean. Nothing was flimsy. Nothing felt like a giveaway.

Now, about the price

Free jewelry sounds suspicious. I know it does. My son Michael said the exact same thing when I told him on the phone. "Mama, nothing is free, you be careful giving these people your card."

I had the very same worry. So I looked it up before I ordered. These same pieces had been selling on that website for years, anywhere from around a hundred and ten dollars up to a hundred and fifty dollars each. I found the old reviews, going back years, from real people. This was not some overnight website that appeared last week. This was twenty-three years of a real store with a real name behind it.

The only reason the pieces are free is the reason Father Quinn gives himself. He is closing, and he would rather a believer wear them than have them sit in a box or be sold off for scrap metal. That is the whole of it. And it is the reason I am writing this, because once the last pieces are gone, there will not be any more. Ever.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and you asked me whether you should order something before this store closes, here is exactly what I would say.

I would say do not do it because it is free. Free is a poor reason to bring anything into your house, and you will not treasure a thing you got only because it cost nothing.

Do it because there is somebody in your life who ought to have something real to hold onto. A daughter going through a hard season. A grandchild getting confirmed. A friend who is grieving. Yourself, if your own cross broke years ago and you never did replace it, like me.

And I will tell you the thing that stays with me. When I went back to send the link to my sister June, a couple of the pieces I had been looking at the week before were simply gone. Sold out. Not "back soon." Gone. That is when I understood Rosemary was not being dramatic. The clock really is running down.

My daughter Kathleen wears her bracelet every single day now and told me it is the first thing she reaches for. My granddaughter cried when I gave her the pendant for her confirmation. And Michael, my son, the one who told me I was being scammed, called me last week and asked, a little sheepishly, whether the St. Benedict rings were still available, because he wanted one for himself.

If you have read this far, I think you already know what you are going to do. I only thought somebody ought to tell you the truth about it before you decided.

— Eleanor

Eleanor Hartley lives in Marietta, Georgia. She taught third grade in Cobb County for thirty-one years before retiring in 2018. She has three children, six grandchildren, and a tabby cat named Gus.