A reminder to pause, think and help
It takes an incredible amount of courage and wisdom just to pause and offer a little bit of help
On my way home from a long holiday trip to Quebec, I popped into Moncton for a final gas fill-up to get me to P.E.I. On the other side of the pump was an older gentleman gassing up a Chevy Suburban. He was in his 50s, with silver hair, aviator sunglasses and a leather jacket. He looked like a pilot from the 1980s. Like he watched ‘Top Gun’ a few too many times.
I was filling up my little Toyota and cursing the cold when a second man yelled with slurred speech from across the parking lot. Like many people in around here, this younger gentleman looked as though he suffered from a lifetime of substance abuse and poverty.
Walking towards us, he yelled to the pilot look-alike, “Hey buddy, I’ll sell you an amp for your truck.”
To which the pilot awkwardly replied, “No thanks. I have a decent system in there now.”
There I was, in -20 C degree weather, caught in the middle of the most uncomfortable car stereo sale in Canada. Not giving up, the man slurred, “I’ll give it to you for $40. It’s a good amp.”
Obviously not wanting to buy a new sound system, the older gentleman stumbled out words that sounded like, “…I don’t need it since I’ll probably retire this rig in a year anyway.”
I was glad that my car was almost full so I could excuse myself from this scene. Then out of frustration, the sketchy man said, “Oh c’mon, can you just give me $20 for it so I can get something to eat?”
The older gentleman paused, then said, “Well if you’re that hungry, why don’t you wait until I’m done here and I’ll take you to Tim Hortons to get a bite to eat.”
The sketchy guy agreed and they both just stood there in the cold, waiting for the bottomless tank of the SUV to fill. I exhaled a warm, steamy breath of relief in the frozen winter air. I wanted to high-five that aviator man. I wanted to say, “Yay! Good job!”
So often, the opportunity to help someone slaps us across the face and we don’t know how to react.
It takes an incredible amount of courage and wisdom just to pause and offer a little bit of help. If we’re in public, or in a rush, this becomes doubly difficult. We feel blindsided when someone approaches us and our internal response mechanism screams at us to get out of the situation and flee.
On this first day of 2018, in a world that sometimes feels broken, I watched someone overcome those feelings and bridge that awkward gap to a place of compassion.
I don’t have any personal resolutions this year, but I did receive a good lesson at a gas station this morning. A reminder to pause, think and offer help when someone is seeking it.
I’ll do my best to emulate that in 2018.