STORIES

 

 I was standing in an extremely slow moving line at a Spectrum office the other day…

doing my best to wait patiently…

with one older woman in front and to older men behind me.

When we realized we’d be in line for a while

which was causing the older woman some consternation

we decided to pass the time in some friendly conversation.

It turns out the two men were Vietnam vets…one spent 18 months there in 1970,

the other 13 months in 1964.

The stories they told were more about ways they distracted themselves

to take their minds off the atrocities of that war.

While they were trading stories…of a place and time that was not part of my fate…

the older lady ahead of me was constantly complaining about the wait.

I stood there mesmerized at the juxtaposition…

of a lady whining about how the line was moving so slow…

And two men so easily discussing those months 

that, I’m sure, changed their lives…all those years ago.

Well, the older lady finally made it to the counter…and once she was on her way…

realizing my question would take some time…

I told the Vietnam Vets to go ahead of me…and I’ll come back another day.

As I listened to them I kept thinking to myself…I can’t imagine what it’s like in war…

then I thanked them for their stories and their service…before heading out the door.

In the parking lot I was met by that same older lady…the one complaining in the queue…

She said the battery in her Subaru was dead…and she didn’t know what to do.

She said the reason she was impatient (and now crying)…she wanted me to know…

was her 62 year old son died of cancer…just two days ago.

So I hugged this stranger in the parking lot…in the midst of her bad day…

then we found a man with jumper cables…and she was on her way.

As I stood in the parking lot after she was gone…I thought how life is so bizarre 

how we’re all living different stories that forge the people who we are….

A myriad of stories…some happening today…others now long gone.

And how sometimes we’re too quick to judge another person…

when we don’t know which page their story’s on.

A revelation felt in a parking lot after standing in that Spectrum office

in a line that was moving slow….

as I listened to two Veterans tell their stories…now six decades in the past

and felt one older lady’s sadness…that began two days ago.