Touched by the kindness of a stranger
Traffic was slow because of the rain, and I was going to be late. Between that moment so drenched in anxiety and the final resolution, I was saved by kindness.
Last week I drove to Pittsburgh to get the third and final shot in my knee. Traffic is always bad in the morning and worse when it’s raining.
On the Boulevard of the Allies headed toward Oakland, with water ponding all over, I was doing a cautious 45. So was everyone else, except the jerk in the big rig truck who ran up behind me. He could have picked any of the cars around me, but he chose to bully me — with lights on and horn blaring.
By the time I was up the hill in Oakland, I was rattled. Now all I had to do was drive down Bates Street to Second Avenue, cross the Hot Metal Bridge and get to my appointment. But that was not how this morning was going.
Bates Street was closed, blocked by several police officers and what appeared to be a disabled bus. Unfamiliar with the area, I counted on my GPS to find a way around, but GPS was as befuddled as I was, taking me around tight neighborhood streets and always landing me back at the blocked Bates Street.
Setting out for a fourth try, I found myself headed the wrong way on a one-way street. A man in a white van saw me and got out.
He’s going to yell at me, I thought. I rolled down my window.
“Sorry, I’m lost,” I said through a cracked window to evade the downpour. “Bates Street is closed.”
He gave me detour directions: turn around and go left, then when you get to Joe’s Bar you’ll go around the bend and then two streets over turn left.
“I don’t know this area,” I said, wanting to spare him more time standing in the rain.
He was looking at a frazzled lady and took pity.
“Follow me.”
He got back into his van and led me on a trek through narrow streets, a dizzying route of right and left turns I would never have navigated myself. I got a little teary as we made our way, touched by the stranger’s kindness and knowing that without his intervention, I would have missed my appointment (and maybe had to do this awful trip all over again another day.) How do I compensate him for diverting from a workday to help a stranger? All I had were two ones and a half-eaten banana.
Finally, I could see my destination. My helper got out of the van at the light and walked to my window to tell me to go right. I rolled down my window to reach out to shake his hand.
“You saved my day,” I said, thanking him about 30 times.
“Happy to help,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
I’ll keep a picture of that moment in my memory, a man standing in a downpour, rain dripping off his gray hair onto his face, his shirt soaked through.
The most famous scene in the film “Bridges of Madison County” has a soaked Clint Eastwood standing in the rain, looking at Meryl Streep through her car window. That’s how I remember my own rainy moment.
Maybe it’s silly to romanticize it, to refer to that man as an angel or something. But I think he earned my reverence. On a miserable day like that, he didn’t have to go out of his way to help me, but he did.
I was late for my appointment, but only a little.