Helping My Fellow Traveler

"Helping my fellow traveler" is one of my new mantras. I was so glad when a friend shared the following story and gave me gratitude for those earth angels who serve us!

Story:


Riv, I was so antsy at work that I decided to "take ten" and walk to the gas station about 1/2 a block or so away. This is not a common habit and I had already had a soda and a scooby snack but still I wanted to get out and walk. As I am nearing the gas station, I see a woman standing there by the pay phone looking a bit disheveled and maybe just a bit distraught. I was compelled to ask her that general greeting we give strangers "Hi, how are you?". She looked at me and all she could muster in a defeated voice was "I'm okay." I was compelled, beyond my own wisdom, to stop mid stride and stand looking in her eyes. "You are not okay, what is wrong?" "Well," she stumbles over her words trying to hold back tears. "I have my son's debit card and I just found out my elderly mother has charged $1000.oo off of it and now they are declining it." Okay, I think but I wait. "So," she continues "I am trying to get a hold of someone, a family member, to get me some gas." "Oh, I can give you $5.oo!" I SOOOOO generously offer. "No thanks, I will be okay." She says. (I come to find out she is 2 hours away from home and the $5.oo wouldn't even get her OUT of town!) 


My friend continues her story:


I told the lady that we will get her $15.oo of gas and this lightens her load. As my friend is pumping the gas, the teary eyed women who has the world on her shoulders, begins her true story. She is here picking up her grandchild for her son who has his "own" issues. She drove 2 hours to help him out only to find out elderly mom cleaned the bank account of her son. Now she has granddaughter in car and is two hours away from home without gas or money. She has just lost her own job and is beyond grief and sadness. My friend filled her tank up with $30.oo and bid goodbye to her weary fellow traveler whose gratitude shined brighter then any star. 


My friend exclaimed that she was so glad that she looked at this stranger as a fellow traveler and not as a stranger. She would have missed the opportunity to help had she saw her as stranger standing at a pay phone!


I am signing off for the weekend but do go and see! SEE YOUR fellow travelers, don't SEE strangers. Go and do. And have a intentional
 weekend.