Little Women

We have a puzzle emergency. Yes they happen. Especially right now with crazy stuff going on with the customers we deal with at my job too. Overall, it's a busy time with Son's summer program and the puzzles and the vending that is going on in NC right this very moment where we are being represented to potential customers. There's is the book proposal I still need to get back to work on. We've got a newspaper article to our credit now and a podcast too. It's life.

So I am outside on the phone with a die company. Can't get what I want today. I call my manufacturer to tell him the deal. I watch as one woman sloooowly walks down the street assisting another who clearly has issues with her legs. I notice their slow pace and wonder if it's leisurely to the woman who is helping or is she just used to taking it really slow for the sake of this other woman. I think it might bug me a little.

I leave a voice mail message for my manufacturer who is in and out and I keep watching the women walk toward me. As I wrap up my message, they pass me by.

"Ma'am. Ma'am! Ma'am!"

I see the disabled woman is trying to look my way, throwing ma'ams at me like a pushy toddler.

"Um, I presume you mean me?"

"Are you waiting for the bus," she asks for all to hear.

"No I am not."

"I need to take the bus."

I look at the woman with her who watched the exchange like she has no vested interest.

"Sorry. Don't know anything about the buses here. They come. Don't know where they go."

I step to her side on my way back into work. One of the summoned buses arrives just as I finish talking to her. The disabled woman then clasps my wrist as if I had offered it to her.

"I need to take the bus," and she begins to take me along on her little journey to the bus that has now pulled up and opened its doors. So now we are two women walking sloooowly with this woman. The bus driver looks like he knows her. She tells him where she needs to go while she climbs on board. I watch the other woman and tap her shoulder.

"Were you accosted?"

She smiles such a slightly confused and yet patient smile and laughs a little. "Yeah." I watch her wait as the woman gets on.

"God bless you."

"Thank you."

I go back to work.

Life is insane. I can't seem to get a moment of quiet. I think God just took me by the arm and said, "Slow down. You're going to get there. You've just got to help some people along the way."