Kira and I work together and today, she sent out this story via a company wide e-mail. It’s a lovely reminder for this and the upcoming Holiday season…
OK, so it’s not a miracle, it’s just a story. But a true one. It all started this morning…
I got up at 6:30 to get a headstart on housecleaning. My whole family was flying in for the holiday, and they’d never seen my apartment and if you have a Mom, you know she checks everywhere looking for any scrap of filth you may have overlooked.
So about the time I vacuumed out the dryer lint trap, I realized “Crap! I’m late for work.” Normally I wouldn’t be too hard on myself for this little mishap, but my first houseguests were due to meet me at the office in T minus forty-five minutes. So I put down the vacuum and dashed off to catch the bus.
Fifteen minutes later I’m getting on the 147, feeling pretty proud of myself, when I realized I left my security card at home. Normally I wouldn’t let this little mishap get me down. But this morning I needed it to let my sister and her husband in and out of the office…and more importantly the bathrooms. Reluctantly I turned back to get my card.
By this time I was frustrated, cranky and hungry. Even in the 40º wind, it got warm as I trotted the 1.3 miles back to my house. Off with my mittens, my scarf, and–wait…where was my scarf? The one that I just bought two days ago? The warm one that matches my new coat perfectly? Then I spotted it, back across the four-lane road that took four minutes to cross, slumped on the sidewalk out of the path of hasty passersby.
It seemed out of harm’s way so I figured I’d grab it on my way back. I knocked out the last two blocks to my place, grabbed my CTA card, petted my confused dog, then headed back out to retrieve my scarf and catch the bus, all before my sister arrived on the 33rd floor.
By that point, I was running, and scanning for my teal blue scarf, but it was nowhere to be found. In the four minutes since I abandoned it, someone else had come along and claimed it. Now I was downright mad. This morning wasn’t going as planned; I’d been robbed!
As I got in line at the bus stop, I saw a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye. There, huddled under the bus shelter, was my scarf…with its new owner: an old, bent-over homeless man who admired its beauty as he tied it around his neck and settled in next to his bags.
For a split second I thought about saying something to him. Couldn’t he see how his new treasure matched my bright mittens perfectly? But just seeing his appreciation for my scarf–something so simple and mundane–told me he was getting much more from it than I ever could.
And it struck me as I sat down on the 147 at last, that this was a little reminder sent to me this Thanksgiving to stop sweating the small stuff and give thanks for all the wonderful stuff we have in our lives. I hope you’ll do the same.
Happy Thanksgiving!