There have been random moments in my life, during which I could not have known I would need someone, when a kind stranger saved me. This happened in small ways, big ways, ways that seemed pretty large at the time...
The very first time I can remember occurred in my own neighborhood when I was about 6 years old. I don't know whose bright idea it was to have me get off at a different bus stop after school, but those were my instructions. My grandmother was supposed to pick me up at that other stop. I did as I was told, but when I left my seat and stepped on the curb, I couldn't find my grandmother's car. The bus drove away, and I was the only one standing there. I took off my pack, sat down on the sidewalk, and chewed on my tears. I was completely bewildered and had know idea where I was... then this older woman tapped my shoulder. She asked if I was lost and when I confirmed it, she took me into her home across the street. She gave me something to drink and asked if I knew my address (Thank goodness for public elementary education in which a student's first spelling test involves her name and address). As I sniffled and drank, she looked me up in the phone book. She asked my father's name. She discovered quickly that I lived right up the street about two blocks. After I finished my cup, she took my hand and started walking me towards my house. Just as we came to the end of my parents' street, my grandmother arrived and we drove away.
I don't even know that lady's name. I never saw her again. I don't remember why my parents weren't home and I forget why my grandmother failed to get me earlier (I think she followed the wrong bus... this was before there was a system for other relatives to pick you up at school). I do recall, however, the overwhelming feeling of being little and lost and how I worried about things I knew nothing about yet (a kid this day in age probably would get into more trouble than I did being abandoned at a bus stop). I also remember feeling rescued when that kind older woman took me in. She didn't frighten me in the least and went out of her way to take me back home.
Skip ahead to a summer... maybe the following year. I was at Vacation Bible School and it was a particularly hot day. I don't remember anything about the morning, anything or about what we were doing outside. All I remember is a weird, bad feeling. Something wasn't right. My head was spinning, my knees were buckling, I couldn't focus on any of the kids around me... I actually remember very little of how I was even noticed, or how I got across the street. Maybe I had turned too many shades of red or maybe I even fell down... whatever happened, I do remember sitting inside, the air conditioning whipping around my aching head. A man, probably one of the several young pastors working that summer, came to me with some sort of pound cake and lemonade. He told me to eat and drink, so I did. I was shocked at how, almost instantly, I started to feel normal again. I could focus on faces, my head stopped swimming, my stomach growled with satisfaction.
The mid-morning snack that pastor offered me was more effective than any communion I've ever taken. I felt that new life had been transferred to me so I didn't have to die. That's awfully dramatic, but I was 7 or 8, so, I couldn't understand that the intense feeling that swept over me could ever sweep its way off of me. As far as I was concerned, that man saved my life... I think I'd recall his face if I saw it again, but I'm almost certain he moved a summer or two later to another church outside of our community.
I've been rescued in minor ways as well. I remember during college I was working on a scarf for my mother's birthday. It was my first project interweaving two different colored and textured threads together. I was sitting outside of Lenny's near Aroma's, and as I pulled my yarn out of the bag, I saw that I had managed to get it all tangled together. I had hoped to finish it that afternoon, so I was pretty upset. My mother is really good with knots, but I couldn't ask her to help me with her own scarf! I sat there and struggled on my own. Just like the kind lady at the bus stop, a woman with a friend walking down the sidewalk spied me and gasped, "Oh! What a terrible mess!" She didn't even ask me before she took her spider-thin fingers to my yarn and began working magic with the threads. We started talking during the half hour she stood there helping me. I found out that she was a professional weaver and had a great deal of experience untangling and arranging long pieces of thread.
I love when odd things like that happen... I almost never work outside and on a whim I went to Lenny's. The same day, a professional weaver comes by and saves me! I began to knit as quickly as I could and then three other little saviors helped me with the rest... my roommate at the time worked on the tassels at one end while I worked on them at the other and Jo and her brother helped make a very special card for my mom. It was a day a significant and compassionate collaboration.
When I went to France, with my enormous suitcase, I had been forewarned by my French friend that all I needed to do to lug that thing off the plane, on the train, up the stairs of my hotel, was to bat my eyes at the nearest European man. As silly as this sounds, my little broken back was particularly grateful that this was true. There is a small army of French, English, and Italian men (and even two French women!) who helped me move my suitcase around from train to train.
I had a chance to be a miniature messiah myself. I had my French friend pre-approve my wardrobe before leaving, so most people assumed I was French or at least European. I was walking away from the famous Paris opera house when a girl came towards me. I can't explain it, but I could tell she was American before she even opened her mouth. It might have been something she was wearing or the way she carried herself (You'd be surprised... there's a big difference in the air to see women of different countries just walk). She asked me in broken French where a certain place was... and I smiled and told her in plain, American English where she needed to go. She seemed pretty relieved, though mentioned that she was surprised to find that I was also American. She had a better bounce in her step when we parted ways... as if she could conquer this City of Light after all...
One of the best moments of feeling rescued was an ordinary morning at school. I had performed a special, private ceremony (known to few) and went off to class. I was about an hour early. This class assigned some of the most dreadful reading, and since I hadn't finished it all the night before, I decided I'd rush through it while waiting for class to start. When I arrived, there was actually another student already there. After getting past why the hell anyone would come to this class so early, we discovered that we had read opposite stories. I had read the two stories he had not, he had read the two stories I failed to read. I told him what happened in the portion I had read, and he reciprocated. It was this awesome moment of unnecessary human kindness... an act I believe I will treasure always since it led to my friendship with his wife, Caro.
Moments like all of these, it can be harder to believe that someone in the void is not watching over you... these strange benevolent circumstances that could have been worse, maybe threatening, had these momentary messiahs not been present...
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