Debts of Gratitude
I’d like to invite you into a little exercise here, a bit of group celebration and thanks.
Is there someone who made a positive difference in your life but who you never saw again? A stranger, perhaps. You never knew their name, or if you did you’ve forgotten it. But perhaps your interaction, however brief, shifted something, changed something, taught you something, opened something such that even years later you’re still grateful.
For me, it’s a man I think of nearly every time I get in a car. He was the driving instructor my parents hired after I’d failed my first driving test at 16.
My mother and father had given up on trying to teach me. After I got my learner’s permit, each had attempted to take me out on our winding country roads and into traffic in town, but these forays always devolved into my weeping in response to their death grip on the car door handles and anxious shouting.1 (This was before Drivers Ed was a thing.)
Some weeks after I flunked that driving test, this guy showed up at our house in a dull beige beater. I can’t recall his name or really much about him at all, except he was burly and brusque and I had to drive his bucket of bolts with the “H” on the steering wheel column and a stiff clutch on the floor (and as a side-effect fell in love with manual transmission).
He was calm2 and direct and instilled a firm confidence in my ability while tolerating not one iota of silliness. He taught me to engage the turn signal “about 3-4 houses beforehand” and to achieve a full stop at a stop sign by sitting on the brake for four seconds (count it out…1…2…3…4) before continuing through the intersection. (That’s how I’d failed my first driving test — by rolling through the stop sign.) He taught me a fool-proof system for parallel parking, which I still use to this day, each time whispering, “Like a glove,” as my car slides right into the spot.
The most important thing he taught me, and which I now pass on to you, is this: when you approach a left turn and are waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, DO NOT DO THAT ANTICIPATORY THING OF ALREADY HAVING YOUR WHEELS TURNED SLIGHTLY LEFT! Rather, keep them aimed straight ahead. Why?
Aimed toward left, someone rear-ends you, you’re going to be pushed into oncoming traffic. If your wheels are pointing straight ahead, you’ll be propelled forward but not into the path of other vehicles.
Thanks, Mr. Driving Lessons Man. More than 50+ years later, I still remember your gruff kindness and all your “safety first” wisdom.
Okay, who is someone who shared advice, a story, listened to you, supported you, or otherwise impressed you in such a way that you still think of them with gratitude, but…you don’t recall much about them and have never seen them again? Please share below! Let’s have a little gratitude party here for all the unsung heroes of our lives!
To be fair, completely warranted. A traffic light that was yellow caused a good deal of indecision in me. Stop? Speed through? Why not try both in rapid succession! (I can still see my mother’s widened eyes and the round “Oh!” of her mouth.)
He could afford to be, because he had the comfort of a passenger-side brake on the floor in front of him.
This will be a touch long.
Several years ago I was grocery shopping when I noticed a woman in the store who had been severely burned. Her face had been disfigured to the point that her nose had been mostly burned off and her ears were gone. It appeared that a plastic surgeon had done his or her best to build out a semblance of ears. She also carried the typical raised scars covering her entire face in the area of the original burn.
She walked with confidence and seemed unbothered by the blatant stares, or the stares that tried to be inconspicuous. Though I am sure she saw them for what they were. And there were the ones who were careful to avoid eye contact due to their own discomfort. Whether the stares were blatant, inconspicuous or not at all, I had the sense that the underlining reaction of each person was based on fear - fear that this could be them.
I’d never seen this woman in my life so it seemed almost ordained that the very next day she would walk into the lobby of the bank branch that I managed.
I walked out to greet her and introduced myself extending out my hand to shake. It caught me off guard when in shaking her hand I realized that I was shaking the terminal end of the residual limb. Both her hands had been burned off in whatever accident she had.
I brought her into my office to discuss what brought her in and how I could help. She told me that she was there to open a business account for a non-profit she had started to help burn victims live their best life. I remember thinking almost immediately, “What best life.” I couldn’t imagine how anyone scarred and so badly disfigured could possibly live a best life. I’d rather die.
I could tell the story here of how she was burned so badly. It was a house fire, but it isn’t the important part of the story and the impact this woman had on me.
That night I could not stop thinking about her. A picture of her would flash through my mind and awe me at the courage she carried like a crown. I couldn’t wrap my head around how she walked so tall, so confident, with an ease that was astounding.
As I thought more and more about this woman I realized something so significant that I found myself almost envious of her. In the face of a life altering, devastating tragedy (she had also been an OR nurse, but could no longer be in that role as she had no hands) she found something I didn’t have and still don’t.
Our identities are so closely tied to our physical appearance, along with other things, of course. To lose that, to lose a career she loved, to lose a husband who could not deal with her disfigurement, who was she now? This woman had to reevaluate her entire life, her worth, and so much more, and in the end she found that her worth extended far beyond these things that we are all so tethered to and all pay a price for.
I wanted that. I wanted to see my real value untethered to a weight I didn’t want to carry, some false narrative created by a culture that has become so lost that the path to freedom is no longer visible - a path that shown so brightly for her that it required no searching. She was the path.
I’ve since tried to find her, and this has been over twenty years ago. I haven’t had success. I only remember that her name was Priscilla and she looked like a princess.
I remembered the act for which I had so much gratitude! It came to me this morning as I was walking around Buckeye Lake. From time to time, I go there for a couple of miles walk. One hot summer evening, after walking about an hour, I decided to find a spot on the rocks near the water to take a rest. A boy of about 10 years old was riding his bike past me. He slowed his bike and queried, "Are you alright, ma'am?" I was so touched by his concern and his apparent willingness to help me if I wasn't ok. I just kept thinking about how brave that was of him too, for surely that had to be an act born of great compassion to ask an "elderly" stranger.
I can't tell you the relief I have that I remembered this incident! I will cherish it more closely now.