A real time blog
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As I cycled into the plaza I saw her drag her dolly behind her like a hunchback, maybe 5 feet tall. I parked my bike and began to journal an end of the year update.
I looked up and there she was, struggling to get the wheels back on her cart. The spring had sprung and a washer lay on the ground. She struggled to get the wheel back on in front. She did get the wheel back on but as she fidgeted with it, it sprang again. She was seated on the cushioned bench of the booth. She got up and stretched her leg out to claw the spring back with her foot. It was, to say the least, too much of a stretch to bend down and pick up the spring.
She expended all her energy dragging the spring back to her body with her foot. How was she to bend down again and insert the spring into the axle? She had already done that once, and it looked like such a chore to lift the grocery bag out of the dolly so she could maneuver the dolly around to put the axle back into its place. Her hunched back collapsed against the bench. I wondered, as she sat there exhausted and regaining her breath.
Well, I most definitely could not finish writing my end of the year up date now. I tried to write but I couldn’t anymore. It was such a struggle for her. I sat up and pondered in my booth. How long would she sit there until she regained her breath? Until she was able to try and put her dolly back together. She took one big breath, exhaled and regained her strength for another move. After a bit of respite, I saw her left hand reach out shakily, a large ring on her ring finger. Where was her husband? Quite obviously, she was a widow, otherwise she would not have been dragging a 15 pound sack of groceries by herself across a parking lot. She was all alone, doing the daily task of living, buying groceries, walking all alone. Perhaps parked in this Burger King to catch her breath and fix her dolly all on her own.
Her hand stretched out to a spring too far; removing the groceries from the dolly was already a lot of work for her and sapped her of all her energy. I wondered again how long she could do this on her own. She could not bend down to pick up this spring, otherwise she would have done it already. She did manage to track the washer under the foot of her shoe and slide it back towards her body. I knew she would have to rest and regain her composure again if she were to put the spring back onto the axle, which had collapsed out of its socket with the wheel rolling away.
I got out from my booth and picked up the spring and the washer, and put it back on the axle along with the wheel. I told her she was missing a washer and needed another washer for the other side of the axle. Her wheel would spin loose and come off again. She needed more tape but her dolly was already taped together. It had seen better days.
“It’s too old. It’s falling apart,” she acknowledged to me from her booth.
That I recognized. A 35-year old wooden clothes rack had also popped a couple sprockets and collapsed on itself as I set my clothes out to dry before I biked here. I remember this clothes rack from when my grandma used it when I was a toddler. This lady’s grocery dolly was probably of similar age.
I finished putting her dolly back together and she asked me to help put her groceries back in the dolly as I got up to to return to my seat. 15 lbs doesn’t seem like a lot but that’s a dead lift of 400 pounds for an old lady who has to lift a bag of groceries 2 feet off the floor and place it back in her shopping dolly. If it’s lying on the ground then she won’t have to lift this 400 pound sack of groceries off the ground. She could slide it into the dolly but then she’d have to flip the dolly back upright, like a hundred gallon oil barrel in a strong man competition. But she was an old lady.
I don’t know how she was going to struggle home with this cart.
After a little bit she reached in her wallet and gave me two dollars across the booth. I declined. I didn’t do this for money (but I would do this for props? Yes. Damnit, you reader better give me props for this. But I know if you’ve read this far then you’re the one deserving of eprops). I shook my head and waved my hand, I felt like this was turning into a Chinese dim sum payment argument. She looked exasperated.
“You can get an ice cream,” she protested, the two dollars waving in her hand. She really wanted to pay me. How else could she express her appreciation?
I still shook my head no but she had a look of pity and offense all at once. I had to accept her two dollars. If I didn’t, she would feel offended, that she could not give more.
It was cold outside. I didn't need an ice cream. I shook my head again but I saw the more I protested the more she got sad. I had to take her money as an acceptance of saying you’re welcome. Words were not enough and she had to, wanted to and needed to express her thanks in another way besides words. This two dollars was all she had to give.
She’s still here. She got a soda and a hamburger with a coupon. I’ll probably get my ice cream now.
“A poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.’” Matthew 12:42-44
Happy Thanksgiving.
“Do not neglect hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2.