I was feeling a little low this morning. My computer and my hotspot were acting up, seemingly not caring that I had work to do. I still don’t know, hours later, if it was the network, the building I was in, or gremlins doing gremlin-y things.

The phone rang — at least that was working, I thought. It was the bank.  There was a snafu with a transfer I initiated last Friday. Could I stop by the branch for a minute? Great. Technology worked fine for that but not for things I actually wanted to do.

As we were leaving our appointment, I tried to negotiate a trip to the local grocery store with my passenger — unsuccessfully, because he’s now a better negotiator than I am, darn it — so I dropped him at home. Bank first or grocery store?  Bank, I decided; and as I look back on the day, I can point to that as the moment that changed everything. 

The bank visit itself took less time than I waited at the crosswalk after parking across from the bank but I was in no particular hurry at that point. Bank issue resolved painlessly, I drove to the grocery store, nearly empty on a Monday morning, and picked up the various essentials, as identified by two hungry young people — bananas (the daughter), a baguette (the son), smog balls (the daughter), wheat chex (me), orange juice (the son), rosemary (the daughter) — you know, just the essentials. 

As I’m loading my groceries into the car, a woman approaches. “Excuse me,” she says. “I need some help but I don’t want to make you nervous so I’m going to stand back a ways.” I know what she’s saying — she’s black and she doesn’t want to upset a white woman.  She’s a little afraid of what I could potentially do to her with one phone call and that makes me feel even sadder than I did when I got up this morning. 

“What’s wrong?” I say, as I put the last of the groceries in the car. I’m smiling at her but she can’t see that through my mask. She’s masked too. It’s deep yellow, drawing the gold from her eyes, but she’s upset and I know she’s not smiling. 

“I’ve forgotten my EBT card,” she says. I don’t hear the rest of her sentence because it’s noisy in the parking lot. 

I pull my credit card out of my pocket (I almost never carry a wallet or purse). “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I don’t have any cash.” 

She’s horrified. “I don’t want money,” she says. “I need a ride. I forgot my EBT card and all I have is $5.” She shows me the bill in her hand. She’s not carrying a purse or wallet either. “I just want to know if you’d be willing to give me a ride home because it’s a long walk.”

“Of course,” I say. She offers to sit in the back (absolutely not, I tell her) and keeps assuring me that she doesn’t have COVID-19. I say, “Me neither.” And she laughs. 

“You’re a superhero,” she says. “A girl superhero. You know, like those cartoon girls.” 

“Powerpuff Girls,” I guess. 

“Yes,” she says and puts out her fist for me to bump. “We’re both Powerpuff Girls.” Yes, we are.

Once we’re settled in the car, I ask where I can take her. 

“The projects,” she says. “Do you know where that is? Low-income housing?” 

I do, sort of. I’ve passed the projects many times on the way to Ian’s school. It’s a long way, more than 3 miles, from the grocery store. I ask, “Did you walk this whole way?” 

“Every time,” she says. There’s no grocery stores near the projects, you know; it’s not profitable enough. She directs my driving gently. “Left at the exit. Can we turn right onto Graham?” 

I tell her that I think so. There’s an officer directing traffic because there’s construction all around us. She says she’s going to ask so we don’t get in trouble and she calls out to him. “Sir, sir. Can we turn here?” 

He rounds on us with such a look that I flinch. Then he smiles and says. “Yes, you can. Have a good day.”

I say to her, “I thought for sure…” 

And she laughs. “So did I. He sure had a look on his face.” We share a relieved laugh. “Left turn up here,” she says. 

And then she talks to me. If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, she’d like to be a tiger — because they take such good care of their cubs — or a cloud. “A cloud?” I say. “I’ve never heard anyone suggest that before.”

“I’m going to explain it,” she says. “Clouds seem so soft but nothing can hurt them. They move. They stay still. They’re beautiful. They come in many different shapes. They even change shape. I’ve been abused my whole life. I think I’d like to come back as a cloud.”

We keep talking. She tells me about her daughter, only two pounds at birth, but now a beautiful, happy 22-year-old. Her neighbor, kind of a nasty woman, passed away two days ago. She wonders if the lady would still be alive if she’d just been a nicer person. What did I think? I said that I thought negative emotions were destructive. 

She nodded. “I’m 47,” she says. “How old are you? You look really young (HAHAHAHAHA) but talking to you is like talking to my daughter AND my mother.” The conversation, and her gentle directions, continue the whole way to her home. “A right here. Do you see that it’s a triangle? You want the sharp angle.” 

As we’re driving up her street, I see a statue (in the Garden of Hope) made from rebar. I point to it. “That’s beautiful,” I say. 

“It IS! There’s another one, a little bigger, on Webster. You should go see it on the way home,” she says. “Just ahead now. You can pull over beyond that white car on the right.”

“I’m glad I met you,” she says as I stop the car. “I hope we meet again someday, under better circumstances. Now, do you know how to get home?” I tell her that I do and that I’m glad I met her too. She slips out of the car and turns around to say good-bye one last time. I watch as she starts walking away. 

She turns suddenly and stretches out her hand. “Do you want this $5 for gas?” She shows me again the bill in her hand.

I shake my head and say, “Thank you but you can’t pay for the gas. It was my pleasure.”

She pulls her mask down and smiles at me. “I hope we meet again,” she says, as she presses that $5 to her chest and walks away.

I didn’t realize until I was almost home that I don’t even know her name. 

If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, what would you be? 

Stay safe.