Beautiful Paradox

Yesterday I was driving down the road, my mind on school. I was trying to do some last-minute review for the quiz I was about to take, and worrying about finals and what grade I would end up with, when I saw something phenomenal.

Most people wouldn't have recognized it for what it was. In fact, I'm sure many would have laughed at what I saw. I laughed too, at first.

As I drove by a small retirement community, I saw an old man, in a wheelchair, sitting alone on the side of the road. On his face was one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen, and he was waving at anyone and everyone who passed by.

In one of my favorite books of all time (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), the main character, Francie, plays a game with herself in which she studies a person and tries to make up their life's story, based on how they look. It's a game I've adopted, and it gives people-watching a whole new dimension. As I drove by that man, thoughts started flooding my mind.

He was alone; I wondered where his family was. I saw his atrophied leggs, and imagined that it has been years since he has walked on his own. I thought of the humiliation and frustration of not being able to do so many basic things for one's self. I saw his shabby clothes and imagined him to be tight on cash. I saw his unkempt hair and imagined that he had a wife once who used to comb her fingers through it. I saw those old hands, and thought about all the hard work they had probably done, and the rough jobs he might have undertaken in his younger years. But that smile-- that smile said so much more than his clothes or his hair or even his hands. That smile told me what kind of man I had the privilege of waving back to. That smile said to me, "Be it ever so little, I am grateful for what I have." It said, "Even though I don't know you I think you deserve to be happy." It said, "Even though I don't have much, I still have something to give. No matter what life has taken away from me, it cannot take away my hope, my kindness, nor my ability to uplift others." That smile was a brief but powerful lesson to me that to give is truly to receive.

In all his glory, with his rusty wheelchair, his matted hair and his gnarly hands, that man was one of the wealthiest I have ever seen.