The stooped figure hobbled along, pushing a folded, wheeled, walker alongside as she limped down the off ramp, tempting death. That inner voice, which I sometimes heed, suggested I take her along for a bit and get her at least across the street, which she was unlikely to safely traverse unaided.
Do you need a ride?
She turned her sun worn face toward me and responded that she sure could.
I asked where she was going, and it was literally just a few blocks down the road; so I beckoned her inside the car with my few scattered back seat objects flung out of the way to accommodate my transitory passenger.
She tried to get inside, as I attempted to hasten the same; cars impatiently crowded around us as she struggled to get her leg into the vehicle: explaining meekly that she had had a stroke. Nevertheless, before long, she was inside and we were moving along properly with traffic toward her goal.
She chatted me up, as I chuckled to myself how I refused to drive for Uber. She asked if I had a cat (because one of the objects cast aside was a collapsible cat carrier).
I said yes, I have a cat, and two dogs, but that the carrier was in case I found someone who needed help; as I explained that I sometimes pick up people or animals who need help. I glanced back at her wrinkled face, brown and smiling despite obvious hardships as she prattled on.
We neared the place she was trying to reach when she asked me my name; I asked her hers in return.
“Taco”, came the reply.
The recognition was instantaneous, and I exclaimed – I know you! So then I told her of the time I stopped and got out of mycar in traffic to give her some money before the light change;and how she had admired my boots that time and shown me hers. This was when she first told me her name.
Well now she bubbled and told me all about her stroke, and her surgery, and the guy to whom she gave her last five dollars for a ride, who then put her out on the highway… I told her it had been a long time since I had seen her. I genuinely was concerned.
She told me when she is usually at the intersection where we first met – though I don’t take that way to work anymore….
And so, as I pulled in to help her out, I asked her if she had a way to make phone calls.
I gave her my phone number.
And then I remembered: long ago, when talking to the man I love and thinking of what to give her that could meet a real need, I had decided to carry a hat in the car to give her. I also remembered that when I saw her again, she had a new hat…. but today, her head was uncovered; so I asked: do you need a hat? She replied that she could use one. And so, with my emergency hat from the back of the car on her head, off she went. But first, I got a photo of her; so that hopefully next time I lose her, I can try to find her again.
And the birthday gifts keep rolling in.
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