An elderly and a bit arthritic and tottery man approached the bus stop and began to fumble for something in his pockets. He couldn't find whatever it was.
I finally asked if he had lost something. He replied that he had dropped a quarter and we both set about lookingg for it. It was nowhere to be found.
The determination with which he looked for it led me to believe that qaurters were hard to come by for him and he might not have enough money for bus fare without the missing quarter. I just happened to have a pocketful of loose change.
In the next few split seconds I pondered how to give him a quarter without offending him, patronizing him, or making a big deal out of it. Finally I just decided to tell the truth without telling the entire truth. While he looked behind the bench I pulled out a quarter and exclaimed, "Hey look what I found next to my bike bags!" (Okay so it was true, the quarter was in my pocket which was more or less near my bike bags.)
He was ecstatic and practically hugged me. The bus arrived and as we both got up he said, "Let me help you with your bike bags!" Instead of politely protesting as I always do, I said, "That would be very nice!"
The bus was full and people were doing their cranky morning complaints about anything and everything but like a ripple the warm feelings the older and man and I had experienced in our interaction began to spread row by row until everyone was smiling.
For the remainder of the ride, I thought about "random acts of kindness" and how rather than think of yourself as being kind or doing something good, we probably should look for the deeper message that has nothing to do with the original "good deed" and look for the other shoe dropping which is where the universe unfolds its real plan.
I nearly burst out laughing when I realized that by giving the man the quarter, I opened up the opporutnity to learn something about myself...namely that I'm fiercely independent and refuse to allow anyone to do anything kind for me because, "I can do it myself," or "I don't need anyone," etc....you get the picture.
And yet, by my very small deed, a much larger thing happened. I loosened up enough to actually allow someone to help me with my bike bags.
It seems like such a small and trivial thing but as you age and begin to think about the future when you will no longer have as much control over your life if you become ill or disabled, these fears can grow into nightmares of fear. These are real fears that the "elderly" must come to terms with in one way or another.
I'm just very glad that the universe stole the man's quarter so that I could allow something nice to be done for me and realize that I would not vaporize on the spot if I couldn't or didn't need to do it myself.
Silly isn't it? But it was a sweet moment of realization. Another reason I love biking....all these sweet moments held together by the spokes of a bike.
