Woman is Baffled by Thrift-Shop Purchase When She Spots Movement Inside

This lady picked up a $2 tree ornament at a local thrift store. And there was quite a surprise inside.

Priscilla had found some real treasures at thrift stores, some truly beautiful and unique. So she made it a practice to look for unusual items. This time, however, she had no idea what she had stumbled upon.

Another of Priscilla’s favorites was blown glass. She loved how it shone in different light settings and the rich look of the material. So when she found an ornament made of blue-colored blown glass, she grabbed it.

She returned home and couldn’t wait to hang up the gorgeous ornament. On her drive home, she decided that the perfect place was in the window so that it could catch the sunlight. Indeed, it looked magnificent hanging in the window, and everyone admired her purchase.

She carefully inspected the ornament, looking for flaws or cracks. It was not brittle or fragile but sturdy. Also, it was heavier than expected. After her inspection, she wondered again why this quality item cost just two dollars. That thought stuck with her; she thought something was odd about the ornament.

She was enchanted with the piece, perhaps more so because it had a bit of mystery. Having heard stories about other people’s surprise purchases at thrift stores, she thought her ornament might have a fascinating history.

At this point, Priscilla decided to stop fretting over the gorgeous ornament and just hang it in her kitchen and admire it. So she got busy with holiday preparation. Later that day, her daughter Kat visited and also admired the purchase. But her daughter noticed something that Priscilla had overlooked.

Kat was more experienced with blown glass than her mother; in fact, her dream was to open her own blown glass store one day. She held the ornament in her hands. Noticing the odd heftiness of the item, she decided not to say anything to her mother just yet.

Kat wondered if there was something inside the glass; maybe that was why the item was so heavy. Her mother agreed it was worth investigating, so Kat got a flashlight and shone it into the blown glass. The two gasped when they saw what was inside.

Horrified, the two stood there watching the squirming “creature” inside the blown glass. All sorts of thoughts ran through their minds, none of them positive. The two looked at each other as if to say, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

They saw that something was moving in one of the compartments. As the item moved, whatever it was, was pushing against the walls of the ornament. This was too weird and frightening. It was time to call someone to check this out.

Priscilla invited the Boston Globe, hoping the reporters would figure out this item and how it came to be in a thrift shop. Between the authorities and the police, Priscilla and Kat hoped the mystery would finally be solved.

Priscilla took the ornament down and handed it around to the authorities and the reporters. They each held it, and all commented on how surprisingly heavy it was. Now everyone was intrigued and wanted to solve the mystery.

“Mom,” Kat said, “it looks like ashes.” This explanation stunned everyone, but it explained the weight of the blown glass and the movement inside as the ashes would shift when the ornament was moved.

They felt that perhaps they were disrespecting the ashes. Another concern was that someone had given this to the thrift store by accident and might be looking for it. And finally, did they want someone else’s family member’s ashes in their home?

The mother and daughter discussed this subject at length. Both loved the beauty and delicacy of the workmanship in the blown glass, but neither would be comfortable with the ashes of someone else’s dead relative in their home.

The time for deliberation was over, and now it was time for action. Priscilla knew she’d never feel right until she did something about the ornament. So she was on a mission to find out more.

Since the reporters had been in her home when the discovery was made, she hoped that they’d share the story and the owner of the ornament would come forward. But, if that didn’t work, she was determined to find another way.

She wondered what her next step should be. She became increasingly anxious to find this precious item’s owners. But she felt that she’d run out of ideas. She imagined the other family wondering who had their urn and worrying they’d never get it back.

The one avenue they hadn’t tried was social media. Although neither woman was an expert at Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, they knew enough to realize that millions of people would see their post and may someone would respond. At least they could try.

Kat kept checking her post for responses. Some people wrote, sympathizing with her or commenting on the item’s beauty, but she waited for something more concrete. Finally, she got her wish – someone actually replied with helpful information

The store manager didn’t remember the donor but gave Pat some valuable information to help her search. Most donors, he said, came from the local area. So there’s a good chance that the owner was someone living in or around Plymouth.

She begged Kat to share whatever she learned since the ornament she had bought was also very heavy and seemed to have something inside. Finally, Kat heard something concrete, but that wasn’t the end.

She described that her ornament had the same heart shape as Kat’s and was also iridescent but designed like a suncatcher. Kat and Priscilla had started a country-wide conversation about these beautiful ornaments. Now they wondered how many more would show up.

“It was made from the ashes of Mt. Saint Helens,” the woman said. Kat vaguely knew about Mt. Saint Helens, which had happened 30 years earlier but was not entirely familiar with the story. Now she was really excited because the connection was becoming clearer.

The column of smoke rose 80,000 feet, and the blast shook the entire area. It was estimated that ash fell in 11 U.S. states and areas of Canada. That certainly makes it possible that ash could have been collected from the blast and kept as a memento.

And a third possibility exists – the ashes are not from a volcano or a person but from something else. There are so many possibilities, and no answers are forthcoming. In any event, the Facebook posts continue to go viral, so perhaps we’ll have an answer one day.