I didn’t know what to expect, so I steeled myself and left early. Senior status has its privilege, with early morning grocery shopping ahead of the crowd. Yesterday’s further restrictions on store crowds and social distancing enforcement amped it up. Today at 6:10 am on a weekday, the parking lot of my local Market Basket looked like Thanksgiving eve.
As usual lately I thanked every clerk I met for working. I meant it. I’d heard this local chain was providing 10% hazard pay. I actually wondered if I might buy $10 gift cards and hand them to random clerks on my next trip. These people deserve triple what they’re getting for putting their health, just to assure our little family unit has ample iceberg lettuce and toilet paper.
As I left, an older clerk pushed a block of a dozen or more shopping carts into the entry door. “Thank you for working,” I said.
“Thank you for smiling,” he offered.
Tears started, and I felt stupid for being such a sap, yet moved. We think we’re alone to fend for our needs. Yet a web of often invisible strangers sustain us with simple acts like making sure we have a grocery cart, or fresh milk, or puzzles shipped to our bored kids in COVID lockdown, or likes to our Facebook pages that share silly triumphs.
We’re especially sustained by angels in our lives, like the two support staffers who still arrive daily to work with Will and Jeff, while I work, clean and manage their healthcare. Like my daughter, who finds time to pop her head up for a Hi every day. Like my mother and friends who phone or text if I haven’t gotten back to them lately.
More than anyone knows, we’re sustained by our special kids. By the way they enjoy something simple, like Xmas music played in April. By the way they try to do something hard, just because we asked. By the way they’re putting up with house arrest, car trips to restaurant pick-ups not eat-ins, hikes on asphalt flat lands – and by and large adapting. By the way they rise in the morning to find me doing yoga in the basement and simply sit nearby, knowing this is where they are most loved.
At night, when I’m dog-tired and my To Do list is longer than when the day began, it’s easy to forget. Present times have challenges and uncertainty galore, but my special sons gave me the best they had today – their smiles.