A Morning Ride

Yesterday morning on the way to work, on a workday that I expected to be anything other than pleasant, I saw a more than pleasant scene that took the edge off that expectation. I saw a woman riding down the sidewalk in a motorized wheelchair. It wasn’t immediately obvious what ailment or disability may have made that chair necessary, but I assume that anyone who has a motorized wheelchair is probably not dealing with a temporary condition.

I briefly wondered, what were her expectations for the day? Did it include pain or medication, or did it simply include the day-to-day grind of getting around and getting by with limited mobility.

But as I approached her it took only a second for my attention to rest on two other, much more important things. This woman had two young girls riding on her lap, one on each leg, facing each other. The woman appeared young enough for the two girls to be her children; but she appeared old enough that they could have been her grandchildren. It was the second observation that froze my attention – this woman had a huge smile on her face and then she appeared to laugh with gusto. So did the children. The three of them appeared to be enjoying their morning ride immensely – they seemed happy with life at that moment.

At that moment, I stopped wondering about what illness or injury in the past had put the woman in that chair and I stopped speculating about what the rest of the day held for her – and what the rest of the day held for me. I realized as I passed them that I was smiling and that I was enjoying the moment, too.

This fleeting encounter reminded me to stay with the here and now, to remember that the present moment is filled with potentiality, most of which, and sometimes all of which, never comes into our awareness because we’re looking in the rearview mirror or practicing “defensive driving” by focusing down the road. That’s a good way to drive; but it’s a poor way to live. When we live that way we miss the gifts that life brings us in each moment. We miss the woman and the two children enjoying a morning ride in a wheelchair. And we miss the opportunity to smile and to laugh with others. We miss life, and that’s something we can’t afford to do.