Today as I was leaving the grocery store, pushing my cart out into the parking lot, I thought how perfect it would be to experience a synchronicity. It didn’t matter what the synchro was, what it concerned, I just wanted one. That desire, I think was the result of a dream I’d had early that morning.
In the dream, I was driving a VW Bug ( we don’t own one in real life) and backing out of a driveway. Suddenly, the brakes didn’t work and I kept backsliding. The terrain in the dream, as where we live, was very flat, so it’s not like I was backsliding down a steep incline. I was backsliding along a flat surface but couldn’t stop. Then I jerked the steering wheel to the right and backed into a neighbor’s yard. I may have hit the mailbox. At any rate, the engine died, I stopped.
I’m sure this dream relates to my fear of backsliding professionally, because the publishing industry is changing so fast and dramatically. It unsettled me. So I felt a synchro would be a nice confirmation or guidance or something to balance out the dream.
En route to my car, I saw a frail, white-haired woman struggling to make a call on her cell phone while restraining a leashed dog hobbling around on three legs, its front right paw curled up close to its body. Then I recognized the woman, J. She used to attend Rob’s yoga classes and has always impressed me with her lively intellect. She’s a Gemini, like me, and is an enthusiastic reader of our books. The last time I ran into her inside the grocery store, she told me that her husband had recently died and she and her Rottweiler were doing fine in the house, that she was still selling real estate.
Now here she was and nothing looked fine with either her or the Rottweiler. I hurried over, my cart rattling across the concrete, and asked if I could give her a hand.
“I can’t get a signal here, Trish.”
“Who’re you trying to call?”
“The vet. I need someone to come out and help me carry her inside.” She gestured toward the dog.
The vet’s office is in the shopping center, wasn’t that far from her car, but the Rottweiler obviously knew she was going to the vet’s office and wanted none of it. I took the leash and said I would coax the dog closer to the vet’s office and J hobbled off toward the office to find someone to help. It was then I realized that J was wearing a boot on her right foot, the kind of boot you wear when your foot is broken. Right foot, right front paw. There was my synchro.
The Rottweiler is large, muscular, I knew I couldn’t pick her up by myself. So I decided to coax her toward my car, get her inside, then I would drive up to the curb in front of the vet’s and get her out. Nope. The Rottweiler refused to budge. She kept moving back toward J’s car.
Suddenly, I hear someone shouting, “Hey, hey, can I help? You need help?
I glanced around, didn’t see anyone, kept trying to coax the dog to follow me. Then this woman barrels over to me, a woman from a cafe where Rob and I get coffee a couple of times a week. I don’t know her name. But I know she’s a single mom with a twelve-year-old daughter, who lost everything in Hurricane Andrew in 1992, when that monster storm devastated part of South Florida. These are the kinds of details you learn about people as you’re waiting for coffee.
“I can lift her,” she says.
“We can both do it,” I replied.
First, she held out her hand to the dog, talking softly to her, explaining we were going to help her. A dog whisperer. Then the two of us lifted the Rottweiller and carried her over to the curb in front of the vet’s. The dog saw J, standing in the open doorway, calling to her, and hobbled toward her.
We got the dog inside, into the examining room with J. And then it struck me. The bottom line message of this synchro had zero to do with my dream and professional concerns.
In J, I saw my mother or my father in their advanced years, both of them frail and sick and unable to care for themselves, In J, I saw the patients in the Alzheimer’s unit where my mother spent her last several years, men and women whose minds and bodies were so far gone they didn’t even know how to use a fork. In J, right then, I was suddenly reminded of what’s really important in life.
We’re all on a journey, and are at different ports of call. We sometimes get so wrapped up in our own concerns and issues that we fail to see what’s right in front of us. We are blind to other people’s needs, deaf to their whispered pleas. In J, right then, I was reminded of how important it is for strangers to help strangers, for friends to reach out, for doing some small act for a person in need. I was reminded that our humanity is what, ultimately, matters the most.
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There seems to be another layer to this synchro. Two days after this event, I was telling my neighbor about it and she got the strangest look on her face. “Now wait a minute, either I’m having a deja vu or I saw this happen.”
The grocery store closest to our neighborhood is one we both use. But I’ve never run into her there. “What did you see?” I asked.
“These two women trying to carry this big dog across the parking lot to the vet’s. Then they set the dog down in front of the vet’s office and I saw the dog holding its foot in the air. That was you?”
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May Santa bless your Christmas with laughter, joy, and the company of people you love.
Strangers helping strangers happens all the time, we just never get that memo or have it featured on the news. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was? Oh right, you just did – “… That was you?” 😀
We were 19 tonight for our Christmas Eve Mexican dinner. It is a family tradition that began by default and is now 18 years and treasured. Have a wonderful holiday celebration!
Happy Holidays to all my wonderful friends here in MU….our Mystic Underground!
It matters not one whit whether we ever meet face to face as we journey through our lives. We meet HERE; we are together HERE; we share HERE; and for these blessings, I am so deeply grateful. Love and joy is HERE. My dear Cousin, especially, I feel you and your thoughts and pain during this time of grief. You know we never feel we’ve done enough….that there must have been something more, something else, we should’ve could’ve would’ve done…..but you DID all you were able. Let that bring you peace. Love to all, and to all a Good Night…..
you are so right, trish – when it’s all said and done, the thing that matters most is our humanity – individually – and collectively – it is so so easy to lose sight of that when our own lives are overrunning overwhelmed with the complexities of just existence in today’s world – and to become even more engrossed/absorbed into that cycle of “me” over all else – nothing has spoken more blatantly more eloquently of that than the death of my sister – going to her home and finding the deplorable circumstances of her every day life in the midst of one life threatening medical issue after another for years – and while i did help, it was/is little consolation when confronted with her reality – and with the realization of how much more i could have done should have done – that realization is now my own reality – lest i digress more – i meant simply to reiterate the absolute and total truth of your remark of our own humanity – we are our brothers’ keepers – we are our sisters’ keepers – our friends’ our neighbors’ – even strangers – in the most literal sense possible – and to me, that is the spirit of every day – not just this season – it is the spirit of life of our own soul and it is what will make possible the chance for change in 2012 and forward – our own humanity –
Perfectly said, Gypsy. I think you did what you could for your sister without totally compromising your own health. Don’t blame yourself!
yes, i know, dear trish – part of me intellectually understands that – it is that other part that is having difficulty – the caretaker for everyone all my life part – i know you know what i mean – and my heart – all parts of it – thank you for always knowing – understanding – and saying just the right thing at the right time! 😉
It’s the big Leo heart part….
thank you…
Speaking about laughter and vets reminded me of a Dutch neighbour
(now passed on) who lived next door to my childhood home.
He had backed over his dog accidentally and taken the dog to a university vet to get it’s leg fixed up.He was so proud that he had saved so much money by taking the dog to a trainee vet at the university that he told my mother
“if you ever need to take your animals to the vet,take them to the university vet, because you’ll be able to get a tird off “:-P
I still have visions of the vet wrapping TP around his hand and asking the dog to bend over,and it never fails to raise a smile on my face when I hear him telling my mum that piece of frugal advice in my imagination 🙂
Merry Christmas everyone.
🙂 Same to you, Daz!
Strangers helping strangers – now that would be something. I like these more personal posts. (Is that your shopping centre car park in the photo?)
Have a wonderful Christmas.
There will be 13 of us, including children, at our house for Christmas dinner. Hopefully will be lots of fun.
Not our shopping center, but it’s similar. Wow, 13 of you! That sounds like fun. Good number, too! Merry Christmas to you, too!
The last part of the story was the best! “That was you?!”
Merry Christmas to you, Rob and Meghan and your pets and to everyone else who comments here! Thankyou for this little site of sanity!!!
Love, Vicki
Same to you, Vicki and DJan!
Yes, Trish, strangers helping strangers, and just plain old human kindness to all those we come in contact with. That’s the spirit of the season. I do hope the dog got its paw fixed and that everything turned out all right. Right? Merry Christmas to you and your wonderful family!