I found this on the Community Bookstore website. It was written by Catherine and I found it moving. It was in the messing about/anecdote section of the web site.

Yesterday, it began . . . the holiday craziness. We should, of course,
be nothing but grateful, but . . . there is this peculiar insanity, too
. . . all-in-all, it can be a little frightening. But in the midst of
it, the white-haired lady pushes hesitantly through the door. I don’t
know her, don’t know her name. Don’t remember, when she first appeared.
It seems as though she’s been here for ages, but time is strange, here.

A year or two ago, I realized that the chaos which was organizationally
the bookstore at the time had invaded the store itself. In an effort to
look after the dots and dashes of the finances of the place, to cut
expenses, slash this and that, make the place profitable, the place
itself had gone to seed. It was looking sorry. There followed a massive
clean up campaign. We sorted out clutter, repainted things, basically
tried to trim the store as well as we could, as well as you would trim
a ship you were setting out to sea, to see, in. And at some point,
after we’d begun to approach being a little less embarrassed, the
white-haired lady turned up. She crept in the door, quiet and shy. I
thought, even then, that she looked familiar, but perhaps she wasn’t. A
gentle lady, perhaps Irish, not a shred of color in her hair, pretty .
. . and she would always head to the mystery section. And eventually,
she came in one day, when the place was particularly serene, quiet
music, good smells, calm and orderly, and she sort of cornered me, so
that I was afraid (oh dear, what does she want?) and she said "It’s BEAUTIFUL.  It’s so beautiful, here."  Perhaps she’s a bit batty?  Perhaps she’s who I’ll turn into?  Because all of her heart was poured into it:  It’s Beautiful, she said, and looked as if she’d like to cry.

So I’m fond of her. She seems to have no need to impose her
personality, to be known. Just every once in a while, she comes in, and
always stops to say "God Bless you. It’s so wonderful here." And you
know, when our income continues to drop, month by month, year by year,
these notes of appreciation are pearls, are gems. Are treasure, to be
hoarded.

Yes.  It is beautiful here. 

So yesterday, in the midst of all the insanity, of the
beginnings of peoples’ frantic buying of things, I see the white-haired
lady push in the door. She’s carrying a branch or two of pine, and in
spite of the three dozen things I’m trying to organize, keep track of,
at once, I am happy to see her.  I think How wonderful, to see someone with palm branches, how gorgeous, old ways are.
I think, even, someday, I will be that woman, who still remembers, and
I remind myself, too, to be her. Deck the Halls. Deck the bloody halls, and remember beauty.

I am so grateful, to her, for existing.  For being this tiny, gentle, shy woman, with her white hair, and her branches of fir.

I turn back to the Melee.  And then I hear her, speaking to young Abigail, who’s only just started here.  "Can you ask her," she says (meaning me), "If she can use these?  They were given to me, for free, and I thought . . . if she could use them . . . "  And . . . . she’s brought the branches to me . . . to this place. Gorgeous branches of fir, smelling sharp and clean, and like every holiday I’ve ever dreamed of.

Glad tidings.  I don’t even know her name. Glad tidings of joy. — Catherine Bohne, from the Community Bookstore website