"What Goes Around Comes Around." When I was a kid and my mom would say
this, I didn't get it. This folk wisdom only
made sense if you were talking about colds or chicken pox. If it was
going around, it would eventually come around to me. Yippee.
Now, of course, I see what the saying
means: You get back something akin to what you give. Maybe not
exactly what you gave, or immediately, but it does indeed come back.
If you know me, you know I struggle
with my weight, especially in winter when all there is is the cursed
treadmill and snow needing removal. I have a longstanding deal with
myself that if I shovel snow, whether for fifteen minutes or two
hours, I don't have to exercise that day in any other way. On the
average, it works out, and we have the clearest driveway in the
neighborhood, even though our neighbors all use plow services.
Once or twice each winter, some plow
service driver will see me working with the heavy snow the town's big
plow has thrown across the foot of the driveway. He'll gesture me to
move back and he'll clear it in one or two passes. This is a lovely
thing to do, saving me the worst part of the job and letting him feel
good about himself for the day, because even though it took him
literally two minutes, he really did do me a favor. And I'm genuinely
grateful for it each time it happens.
Today, though, was different. I was at
the end of the driveway, working it slow and steady, when a truck
stopped and a big man in a sweatshirt got out.
I knew this guy. The spring and summer
we had the dumpster in the driveway, he'd come to the door and
gestured that he wanted to go in it, and once I understood, I'd let
him. He returned several times, removing metal and anything else he
could resell. He borrowed a broom the one time his taking something
made a bit of a mess. If I saw him stop, I'd wave. Once on a really
hot day when I saw him sweating profusely, I'd brought him a glass of
cold water in a disposable cup. This was not exactly going to a lot
of trouble.
Now he gestured for me to hand him the
shovel, and I did. He cleared the base of the driveway with the ease
of a big person who uses his weight to push. I thanked him--he seems
to understand "Thank you!"--and he waved at me to step
back.
He started to shovel the whole
driveway. Two cars wide. Heavy snow, since it was over thirty
degrees. I got the spare shovel and joined in the work. He gestured
for me to hand him that shovel, and he worked one with each hand. In
less than ten minutes, he'd cleared away the bulk of the snow,
working up a good sweat. Could I pay him? I gestured. No, no. "Thank
you. Thank you!"
"Thank you," he said, then
returned to his car and drove away.
I tidied up the edges, thinking about
him. I'd not gone out of my way much to be kind, but I'd certainly
not been unkind, as I imagine some people are to trash pickers
wanting a shot at their dumpsters. I thought he might be Turkish.
Weren't they nearly all Muslims? Maybe he had his own agenda, showing
Americans that people like him were good people, not terrorists. Or
maybe he had the notion that women should not be doing such heavy
physical labor, and shoveling was proving himself the man.
I suppose I'll never know. But I like
to think he did it because he's a good man who remembers copper pipe,
a medicine cabinet, and a glass of water.
