Time, a Hurricane and a Lesson Learned

Time Teaches a Lesson

A dozen or so years ago, I was home due to a snow and ice storm. That morning, as I looked out my bay window, I saw an elderly woman slowly walking with a child. I didn’t know who she was, but noticed she had a shopping bag. Suddenly she slipped and fell hard on the ice. I felt bad, rushed to put my coat on, started my car and went to her aid. I asked if she was alright and she said “yes.” I asked her where she needed to go, and she said home. I realized that she was a Spanish speaker and told her that I would drive her home. She lived less than two blocks from my house.  I go out of my car, opened her door and asked again if she was alright.  I told her she shouldn’t be walking on such a cold icy day.

I didn’t think about that day until this October, when we were doing a Puerto Rico Food drive at the Iglesia Pentecostal de Dios. A young man stopped by and made a cash donation to help the Hurricane victims. We asked his name and he said, I think, Eric Rivera. He told us that his Grandmother was Puerto Rican but that she had passed several years ago. He told me where they had lived at the time. Much to my surprise, I realized that the woman and the child I had given a ride to a dozen years earlier, on a very cold snow/ice day, was Eric and his Grandmother. Now you would think that that is all I learned from the young man, but it wasn’t. He volunteered that his Grandmother was from the same city, Añasco, Puerto Rico, my place of birth. For the past 30 years, I always thought that I was the only Puerto Rican from Añasco ever to live in Adrian, Michigan!

As I look back, I wish I had spoken more to the lady and her grandchild, but I was too busy just trying to get her home safely, that day.  Now, I would like to thank Mrs. Rivera, for having taught her grandchild about Puerto Rico, and about giving.