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2003-02-06 - 5:26 p.m.
Yesterday as I was driving down one of my favorite streets in the world, nestled
alongside a small college campus, made of bricks that make a happy churning sound
beneath my tires, I passed a woman who was laden with stacks of papers. I smiled
apologetically at her because it was an unfortunate day to be walking and there was little
room for my car because the snow had pushed to the edges of the road, making it smaller
so that I had only a little space in which to move over so I wouldn’t splash her with sloshy
salt laden snow mush, she had smiled back at me and just as I passed I saw an envelope
fall from her pile. I looked in the mirror to see if she had noticed but in that elapsed
second from the time I passed her and then could find her in the rear view mirror I lost
that knowledge...I saw her walking steadfastly forward and I had no idea whether she had
caught the envelope or if it still remained there on the uneven ridges of the red brick road
covered in gray snow slop.
I thought, “I should turn around, catch her, tell her an envelope fell,” but just at that
second a garbage truck pulled out and stopped across the road, blocking me from going
forward to find a spot to turn around. By the time the molasses seconds had passed and
he had moved his truck back into the drive, she had disappeared. I suppose I could have
driven around a little, searching her out in the late gray afternoon whose sunlight
squelched through the heavy woolen blanket of cloud cover only long enough to make the
heart leap for a moment and then retreat as the blanket was pulled over the sun’s ears
tightly. But I didn’t...I continued on, wondering what could possibly be in that envelope,
whose life I may have irrevocably changed by not turning around and telling her. There
are so many possibilities..it could have been something mundane, like a bill that she will
not remember to pay now and will have to pay late charges for next month...or it could
have been something paramount like a letter received from a long lost daughter. Or
maybe I did something good by not turning around, perhaps that envelope contained some
heated and angry letter from a disgruntled student (I had assumed she was a professor at
the college) that would make her doubt her abilities, make her feel bad, kindle feelings of
animosity for that student who may have been regretting his/her decision to send the letter.
Or maybe it was just a piece of junk mail, a credit card offer, an advertisement. You never
know what effect one little movement of fate will have. You can never know if the smile
you shine over someone, the gentle touch on the shoulder as you say excuse me, might
have made an impression on them, might have saved them from some downward spiral of
despair and maybe saved their life. You never know if some stupid move you made like
not stopping on the highway to pick up a ladder that had fallen from someone’s truck might
have later caused an accident, or perhaps even a death. And it’s little things like the
envelope dropping that make me realize the importance of every single little minute
decision I make. I may have ruined a life by not turning around, or I may not have.
But I, and she, will never know. |
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