A "Half Full" Story

With all the negative that’s going on in the world today it would be easy to
feel that the glass is always half-empty. Everywhere you turn you’re reminded that for many this holiday season is about what they’ve lost and don’t have, including the simple things like jobs, homes and health. We wonder where the good is and when is it headed in our direction and just about the time you’re ready to give up hope comes a story that gives you a little ray of sunshine.

Nicole (Nikki) Sprague of Toms River has every reason to say “why me”
after her husband Steve was killed in mid-October while working on the New Jersey Turnpike. The high school sweethearts were married less than two years and were enjoying life as the parents of 8-month old Abigail when tragedy struck. As if the story could not get worse days after the accident Nikki’s van was burglarized and she later realized among the items missing was her camera, which held a chip with more than 500 family pictures from the past year. Those pictures included the birth of their daughter, her Christening and other impossible to replace moments of a young family that had so little time together.

However the day after Thanksgiving Nikki’s sister Jamie saw a flier on a telephone pole that contained a picture of the young Sprague family with the message, “Do you know us” and a phone number to call to claim the camera. It took a few days to connect but finally camera, chip and memories to last a lifetime were reunited. It turns out that the camera had been found by Earth Groomers, a Toms River landscaping company shortly after the burglary and they had been trying to find the owner since. They even went as far as to place an ad in the newspaper but had to pull it because there were so many calls from people claiming the camera belonged to them. Who would blame these people for giving up hope of finding the owners but they went an extra step by printing up fliers in the neighborhood where they found the camera in the hope they would get lucky which they did.

Steve Davidson and Kerry Betz of Earth Groomers found the camera and they did not know the entire story of the Sprague family and recent tragedy in their lives. All they did know was that camera was important to someone and they had to make every effort to find the owner and return it. What they have done is given a family an early Christmas present and one that gives them hope that maybe at some time their glass will be half-full.