It was a blue week, not darkly blue, but blue enough to cast a negative pall on those times when my mind wasn’t directly engaged. Why? I haven’t a clue, but maybe I do, sort of. Mix some bodily off-health and several “it didn’t turn out as I had envisioned moments” and you get, at least for me, a kind of loneliness that separates me from the optimism with which I usually face the world. I was surely up for a sunnier disposition and an end to my dependence on analgesics and Tums.
Strange where you find the sun shining.
I found it first, are you sitting down … at Walmart. Now that was unexpected. My trips to this giant merchandiser are usually preceded by determination to get in, find what I need and get out, fast. I did not want to hear people screaming at their kids, children running rampant through the aisles without supervision and other less-than-attractive store-based ambiance.
I arrived early on the day that I was scheduled to have not one but two dentist appointments. Now, that is enough to color my world black. But these were the near–to-the-ends of complicated procedures that had begun more than a year ago. The day had not begun well. Staggering downstairs with the cat worrying me about his breakfast, I looked forward to my first, reviving cup of coffee. Distressingly, the old coffee pot had, overnight, become a planter. I had to face the morning without coffee. I added a new coffee pot to my list of “things to do.”
My coffee-deprived body demanded a fix. I stopped at MacDonald’s and bought a cup.
Now awake, I made my way to the Walmart housewares department. While comparing the available coffee brewers, a trio of people who looked to be older than me, and that is saying something, worked its way into the aisle to find an electric griddle. Two women, who appeared to be sisters, discussed the merits of one, referring to the gentleman who, in a walker, stood nearby.
“How about this one?” They held up a simple grill.
“Looks fine, but can it make French toast, pancakes, those hash browns like Ma used to make?” he replied.
They joked with him, kidding him about his “girlfriends,” grabbed a boxed version of the grill and left, happily chatting about the purchase.
“Sweet,” I thought. A family together through all the years. A nice feeling. Putting my coffee maker in the basket, I made a quick detour to the pharmaceutical area to pick up some soap and again came upon a family, this time a grandmother in a wheelchair and her granddaughter. The former was regaling the latter with funny stories about her mother. Family, again. Both were smiling.
I was then off to the biggest challenge of the day. My spouse needed a new cell phone, one that was inexpensive to purchase and maintain. What do I know about this? Nothing. I stood in front of an array of phones, trying to use my vast education, which is basically useless in this pursuit, to figure out which of the many phones would be the best. I read the information printed on each, thinking that this would help. It seemed pretty straightforward until I came to the admonition on one that said ominously, “no hidden fees.” To which fees were they alluding? Picking each up didn’t help. A young woman, dressed in Walmart attire, asked if she could help. I thought such service had disappeared with Bill Haley and the Comets, but no, she knew her stuff and guided me to a successful purchase. The day was decidedly looking up.
The rest of the week was less blue, but I still carried some pessimism, ennui and grumpiness along with me until yesterday. It was the end of the week. Very tired and lacking in energy or motivation, I sat at the long traffic light at the corner of Genesee and Onondaga Road, mentally griping about the fact that I’ve never actually made it through this intersection without being stopped by the light. I was about five cars back from the traffic signal, looking at the landscaping in front of the Mobile Station when I noticed someone trying to cross the street … a feat of some courage for anyone, but this man had a white cane. He was blind. He started out and turned back three times.
“My gosh,” I thought, “How will he ever get across?” Someone should help him. But who? I kept thinking that the person in the car nearest the Mobile station had the best opportunity, but that driver didn’t move.
Pulling my car closer to the side of the road, and fearing a rush hour traffic jam that would be blamed on me, I was screwing up my courage to get out to help when a man in a plaid long sleeved shirt appeared from nowhere to guide the blind man across Genesee Street. Where did he come from? At first I thought he was either a driver or a passenger in one of the cars waiting at the light, but no, as the cars moved forward, there were none that waited. He seemed to disappear.
There are many ways that he could have been out of my sight. He could have gone down to the hill toward the Target store; he could have come from a car behind me…all sorts of explanations…but from wherever he came, he did something that nothing, usually nothing, can make me do. I cried, big sobbing tears at the generosity of an unknown person, the kind of courage that makes me feel wonderful. An affirmation of the sense of family that extends beyond kin, to strangers in need.
The tears were washing away the rest of the blue…well, almost. There is still the fact that when I ordered a coffee at MacDonald’s, the 11-year-old at the counter shouted back, “One Senior Coffee.”
There’s no denying that I sport the Senior Coffee look, but geesh, have pity.
