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The Rewards of Being an Angel
Once in a while we get to be an “angel” to a stranger. We get to touch a life gently and bring a little piece of serenity to someone in distress. It might be someone we don’t even know, whose name we won’t know, a person we aren’t likely to meet again. Isn’t that what God’s angels do? Don’t they show up at just the right moment, quickly grasp what needs to be done and then make it happen? And when the task is complete, they leave as directly as they arrived. I was backing out of a parking space at the supermarket one Sunday night. I glanced to the left saw a little lady standing there, close to my truck perhaps in her sixties. She startled me. My initial fear was that I almost ran over her. I realized she wanted something, and instantly I thought she might be a beggar looking for money. I rolled down the window and rather firmly said, “Yes?”
At first, in halting English, she asked me how to get to a nearby college. I tried to give her simple directions to the school, but then she said she was really trying to get to a friend’s house near the college. I re-parked my truck, turned off the engine and listened more carefully. She had been there once, she said, during the day, but at night all the houses looked alike. “Do you know the address,” I asked. She didn’t. I felt suddenly perplexed, agitated and a bit annoyed. How could I help her if she didn’t have the address? How could she expect me to give her directions? Then she pulled a piece of notepad paper from her purse. She had a phone number! And it was only then that she could tell me what she really needed—she didn’t know how to use a pay telephone. “How much does it cost,” she asked. “How do I do it?”
My agitation and tension evaporated. This I can handle, I thought, and then said, “I’ll show you.” There was a bank of pay telephones in front of the market. As we walked toward them, she apologized for being so much trouble. I tried, unsuccessfully I fear, to assure her it was no trouble. Then she frowned, how much would the phone call cost? I told her about twenty cents. She handed me a quarter. At the phone, she intently watched everything I did. In the receiver I could hear the phone ringing at her friend’s house. I became apprehensive again. What was I going to say when someone answered the phone? What if the person who answered the phone spoke only Japanese? What if no one answered? My apprehension grew as the phone rang and rang. Finally, someone answered the phone with a lively, “Hello.” “Please hang on, there is someone here who needs to speak with you,” I said to the voice that answered the phone.
Then I handed the phone over to the little Japanese lady. Even before she started talking to the person on the phone, she apologized to me for speaking Japanese to her friend. “My English isn’t good,” she said. After several minutes of conversation she looked at me, “She wants talk to you,” she said, with a tone of uneasiness in her voice. Tentatively, she handed me the phone. I talked to her friend, asked her for her address, and after she gave it to me I asked how to get there from the supermarket. Excitedly, she said, “You’re at Vons?
I’ll come and get her. May I speak with her again, please.” I handed the phone back to the tiny lady.
She listened intently for a few seconds, and then a look of relief swept over the her face. It was like a silent sigh.
A few more words in rapid Japanese, and she was done.
She returned the receiver to its resting hook.
The tension was completely gone from her face.
For the first time in the five minutes I had been with her, she wasn’t frowning with apprehension and concern.
And I realized, too, that my apprehension for her was gone. In front of the market was a table and chairs for public use. I asked her if she wanted to wait for her friend there. I offered to wait with her if she wanted me to. She said no, she would wait in her car until she saw her friend arrive. As I walked her back to her car, as she kept apologizing for “causing such trouble.” And I kept telling her I was happy I could help. And I truly was. When we reached her car I offered one more time to wait with her until her friend arrived. One more time she said she was now going to be okay.
Then she did something I never expected—she gave me a hug, and thanked me again for helping her. It wasn’t a simple, polite hug, but an embracing, loving hug. A sincere hug. A hug as full of emotion as it could be between two strangers. It was unexpected because I thought Japanese people were not so demonstrative. I had visited Japan a few years ago, and I perceived the Japanese as being quite respectful of personal boundaries, and touching a stranger without first asking permission just wasn’t done.
Perhaps I was wrong. Or perhaps she wasn’t so conventional. Whatever the case, it was a warm, wonderful experience. During the hug, after she again said thank you, I was able to thank her, too—thank her for asking me and letting me help her. It took courage for her to ask me for help. She couldn’t have known if I would be rude, angry, or impatient with her because she spoke broken English. For all she knew, I might have just backed out of that parking space and simply ignored her. Perhaps she has good intuition, or great trust that people will help when asked.
Perhaps she prayed for guidance. Whatever the case, a spiritual advisor, when I told her the story, pointed out to me that the little Japanese lady allowed me to “act like an angel” to her. I was the person who “just happens” to be in the right place, at the right time, and has the “answer” to another’s dilemma. And then, once the dilemma is past, moves out of that person’s immediate life. Of course, angels are never really gone because they are always remembered.
And I will always remember that little Japanese lady who didn’t know how to use a pay telephone, yet was willing to ask me for help. At that moment I had to wonder what joy and exhilaration I would have missed had I ignored this delightful and charming lady. Now, when I go into the supermarket, I not only think about the experience, I look around carefully. Is there someone near who needs an angel?
- by Richard Bauman.
Abrev. Advice. Camera. Character. Children. Computing. Electronics. Fitness/Martial Arts. Garden. Health. Idioms. Jokes.
Kitchen/Cooking. Measure. Mechanics/Machines. Motivation. Movies. Music. People. Plumbing. Poetry. Proverbs. Reviews.
School Education. Skills. Stories. Tips. Tools. Words/Accronyms. Woodwork. Home
