A Maple Ridge woman looking for something eclectic to light up her office space, found a new family, as well as a lamp, on the east coast of Canada.
Julia Ghersini, who works in the film industry, was starting a job at a new film production office at Martini Film Studios in Langley, and thought the one standard corner lamp was just not powerful enough to override the fluorescent lighting permeating the office space – especially since she did not have a window.
So, Ghersini wandered over to the Value Village at 207 Street and Dewdney Trunk Road, and decided to look for a desk lamp.
"I like kind of eclectic, tacky, like mid-century, modern things," said Ghersini.
When she hit the lighting section of the store one lamp immediately caught her eye.
It was a lighthouse lamp – a wooden structure, about 30 centimetres tall, with a small bulb at the top.
Ghersini thought, how perfect, as her co-worker, whom she was sharing an office with, is from Nova Scotia. It could also remind him of home, she surmised.
She turned the lamp over to check out the price and discovered an inscription on the bottom – John and Sheila Jordan, Brighton N.S., along with a phone number with an east coast area code.
Ghersini bought it and brought the lamp to the office the next day, telling her coworker Dan, they should take a picture of the lamp and try to find out who John and Sheila are.
What transpired over the next couple of days blindsided Ghersini.
First Ghersini did some research online and found out that Sheila passed away in 2013 and that John had also passed.
Then she posted a photograph of the lamp on an "I Love Nova Scotia" Facebook group page and told the story of how she discovered it at a thrift store in Maple Ridge.
She wrote that if anyone from John and Sheila's family sees the post she wanted them to know that their light continues to shine out west.
The next morning she discovered her post had received 1,000 likes and soon she was up to more than 8,000, and counting.
Then two of John and Sheila's family members reached out to her.
Ghersini learned that John and Sheila never had children, although John had "a ton" of brothers and sisters. Both of them worked at the E.D. Smith factory in Ontario and when they retired they returned to Nova Scotia.
She also learned John was colour blind, and Sheila would paint the lighthouse lamps so John could see them. They gave out the lamps to friends and family, in addition to selling them at the end of their driveway.
Ghersini was amazed at how her post brought a family together on the other side of the country. She noted that some of the Jordan's family members met for the first time through her post.
Now they are talking about holding a family reunion, and, naturally, Ghersini is invited.
"And I'd bring the lighthouse with me, of course," she said.
"I certainly didn't think it would ever, ever blow up like this," she said of her initial online post.
But now that it has, Ghersini has even more reason to keep the lamp, which sits on her desk at work.
"I turn it on first thing in the morning and it's the last light I turn off at night," she said.
And, she added, she might even write her own movie script about the experience.
