Driving this morning, I saw a young mother pushing a stroller in one hand, while using the other to assist an elderly gentleman using a walker. He appeared a little confused when the light changed, and was trying to cross the busy road diagonally, instead of in the crosswalk. I pulled over and parked my car.
May I help? I asked.
Yes, please!
Her son was left in his stroller on the sidewalk as she tried to redirect the man with the walker from traffic. I pulled the stroller away from the edge of the sidewalk and sat with her little boy. I stayed while his mom tried to guide the man back and dial her cellphone at the same time. She finally crossed the street with him.
The two of them sat on a bench on the other side of the road, four lanes of traffic between us. She was on the phone but holding the man’s hand.
The little boy’s brown eyes lit up when I started singing The Wheels On The Bus, and we pointed at a bus, then each big truck that rumbled down the road. I went through my entire preschool song repertoire. We saw a cement mixer spinning, and a long red fire truck. We finally saw two police cars with their lights flashing. I showed the little boy how to make my car lights flash with the key transmitter.
Once help arrived, the mom made her way back across to me and her toddler, whose name, I learned, was Milo. Her big brown eyes matched her son’s. No wonder I hadn’t guessed Milo as we went through every name I could think of, laughing at all my wrong guesses. It turns out the man was neither her dad, nor granddad. He was a stranger she saw stumble in the grocery store parking lot. She’d gotten out of her car to help him to his feet, then to the bus stop when he said that’s where he was headed. He could not remember his next destination.
| The providential banana cake |
She and I hugged each other. She was a little shaken. She said I was her guardian angel. I told her she beat me to the guardian angel job today!
We both agreed, that could have been our parent or grandparent, or even, someday, us. She laughed when I told her I wouldn’t have been there at just that moment if I hadn’t left a cake on the counter and driven back around my block to get it. She just happened to park in exactly the right spot at the grocery store to see the man fall.
We were both in the right wrong place at the right wrong time.
♥ Bless you, Milo’s Mommy, wherever you are.