On my last blog, I talked about the two good Samaritans who helped me out in a moment of need. As usual, talking about the present opened up a dusty door to an old memory of another good Samaritan, long, long ago.
I am 4 or 5, hand in hand with my mother, standing at a bus stop for what seems like hours. My legs and feet ache. I am hungry and cold. It is raining hard, a real thunderstorm that took us by surprise, completely unprepared. The sky is so dark, darker and more ominous than we remember the evenings to be in this place. Though I am too young to decipher it, I do sense the desperation and anxiety of my mother, who is slowly starting to believe the bus will not come.
This is the era before cell phones, blackberry, Internet. The best we can hope for at this point is smoke signals a la Native-Americans or courier pigeons as favored by the Lord of the Manor but even that won’t work in this weather. To add to our sense of isolation, we are newly arrived immigrants in this country. This small town we have moved to seems huge to us. Its usually sunny, warm climate does nothing to alleviate the cold shivers that run down our spine at finding ourseves lost in this foreign, unfriendly place. Where others see sun and fun, we only see solitude and fear. In the midst of this awful downpour, the streets are even more deserted than usual. That’s it. We are stranded. No one will come for our help.
Here we are alone. Truly alone. We stand out like sore thumbs, so obviously clumsy and awkward in our new surroundings where we are finding it so difficult to adapt. We are met with eyes filled with suspicion and contempt. The few locals who deign speak to my mother and I are eager to find out when we will go back home. Home. My mother has never felt so sharply the pain of losing her home, where she was surrounded by her big family, numerous friends, warm neighbors, and friendly acquaintances who, after chatting for a few minutes, always managed to find a family or friend connection. Everyone seemed to be separated by 2 or 3 degrees only, never mind 6. Here we are separated from everyone else by whole centuries, by gigantic oceans, by a deep and endless abyss.
Back to the bus stop and the rain. My mother and I are slowly resigning ourselves to spending the night on that bus bench. Until, like a mirage, he appears.
His name was Gerard. I don’t remember his face, what he was wearing, the color or model of the car that he offered us refuge in, what we talked about during the car ride or even if we talked at all. All I remember is he deposited us about an hour later on our doorstep, only to disappear back in the rain as mysteriously as he had appeared. All my mother and I remember about him is his name.
For years later, my mom and I would mention his name often. It was an inside joke that only the two of us could truly savour. As I grew older, we would continue on our excursions in the many cities that hosted us, sometimes as new residents, other times as merry travelers. And whenever the bus or train or subway was a little late, or we were confronted with the whims of Mother Nature, whenever we lost our way despite the map, whenever things would not go according to plan, we always summoned his name and it would inevitably pull us out of our fearful moods and give us hope again that everything would end up all right, like a powerful and magic mantra. And everything was all right.
Thirty years later, I have lived and traveled in so many cities, studied at so many schools, shopped at so many neighborhood stores, partied at so many nightclubs, jogged in so many paths, worked in so many offices, and all the people I came across, the many friends, teachers, acquaintances, colleagues, bosses, lovers and haters, they all kind of blur together. But I will always remember: Gerard. Wherever you are, I want you to know that the single act of kindess you made towards us, which you probably forgot yourself long ago, meant a world to my mother and I. And that we have never ceased to thank you in our hearts and out loud, for years afterwards. And even now, I want to thank you again: A thousand Mercis to you, wherever you are.
And you, Dear Reader, think to yourself, when is the last time you acted as a good Samaritan?
