My good deed for the day

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Today on my way back from the supermarket I walked by an old lady in a wheel chair.
It was not electrical, but one of those where you move the wheels with your hands.
After I had passed her something stroke me as odd, so I turned around to look at her more attentively. And than I noticed it, she was going backwards with her wheel chair, using her feet to push herself forward instead of her hands. Her progress was slow and since I walk quite fast there was already a considerable distance between us, but since there was no other pedestrian around and after some hesitation if I should really walk back to her, I decided to check her out. She had also come dangerously close to the curb and if a wheel would slip down there she might even topple her wheel chair and fall on the street.

So I approached her and saw that she was, I guess, in her eighties, her hair totally white and in her hands she was holding a potted plant which she probably had just bought from the supermarket. So she could not use her hands to propel herself forward but was using her feet instead while going backwards.
I asked her if she would like me to push the wheel chair and she agreed.
I had guessed that she must live in the nursing home right up the street and I was right.
So it was on my way anyway.

She told me that she used to walk to the supermarket, but now her legs were not strong enough any longer. “But“, she added with a smile “you just need to know how to help yourself.“, referring to her ingenious way of going backwards in her wheel chair while pushing with her feet.
“Yes, that´s right“ I said “but it´s not so easy to go backwards with the wheel chair.“
“Oh, that´s no problem, I got my coordinates from the curb“ she answered.
What a witty one I thought to myself, probably an old yachtswoman.
With us being only a few car minutes away from the sea, and many people here owning sailboats there was a good chance for that.

So I turned her around in her wheel chair and pushed her some hundred meters up the road to the nursing home where she then guided me to the building she wanted to go to somewhere at the back of the compound. I brought her inside up to the elevator where she thanked me, her face beaming with joy, her eyes radiating, then we said goodbye and parted.

On the rest of the way back home I was in a very good mood and happy that I was able to muster up the courage to turn around and approach the old lady.
That was the hardest part for me, that initial first step of offering help.
Once she agreed, the rest was easy.
So this random act of kindness made my day today and probably gave her something to talk about with her friends over afternoon coffee.

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After writing down this story I had to think about a joke one of my friends,
Swami Atma, a monk in the Sivananda tradition once made:
Aggressive service - you go out there and help people, wether they like it or not. 😉

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