Number 134

 A Christmas Miracle?

So last week, I'm walking our two dogs on a wooded trail alongside the Minnesota River. Max was on a leash doing his best to pull my arms out of their sockets. He's on a leash because if he isn't, he'll run off into the woods where it's about a 50/50 proposition that he will return when I call him. Ginger, allegedly the "good" dog, was off leash. But Ginger, who has become a bit of a willful old woman in her dotage, had wandered too far afield and was not responding to my calls. Frustration abounded.

Into that chaos, I received a call from my daughter Grace, who is home on break from school. In a brief moment of distracted driving (not related to her phone, thank you very much), the curb of the street upon which she was driving reached out and bit her right front tire resulting in a rather catastrophic blow out. At 20 years old, this was her first experience with any kind of serious, self-inflicted car damage. As such, in a moment of emotion, she reached out to her parent for support...

... who, remember, was going through her own moment of drama. I brusquely informed her there was not much I could do. I was in the middle of the woods and Ginger was AWOL. Immediately after hanging up, Ginger - who apparently has more empathy for my daughter than me - showed up. 

Fifteen minutes later, I met up with Grace who was doing her best to change a tire for the very first time. Did I mention that it was getting dark and the temperature was dropping? I quashed the guilt I felt for never showing her how to change a tire - a miserable experience which should never be experienced for the first time during an actual emergency. I helped a bit, but mostly I talked her through it. She acquitted herself well.

Once we got back home, she quickly scheduled a next day appointment for two new tires. She, of course, felt stupid about the whole thing, and was worried about the cost of repair. I regaled her with stories of my own history automotive misdeeds, and estimated the expense somewhere in the $400 range. A lot of scratch for a college student, sure, but I assured her that "we would figure it out."

The next afternoon, in another moment of impeccable timing, she called me during my manicure. With my phone in my purse, I had no way of answering - my nails weren't dry yet, you see? When I was finally able to reach out, she tearfully told me the total was going to be $2,200. "Shit!" I thought to myself, and as I was paying my manicurist at that moment, told her I'd call her back. It turned out that some car/tire thingy had gotten bent or whatever, so there was a lot more to the fix than two new tires.

"What the fuck?" I further thought to myself, "The damn car isn't even worth that much!" At that moment, my wife Rebecca reached out to me and offered me both perspective and a path forward. Though she's been gone for almost five years, she's still looking out for us. Grace needed safe, reliable transportation (that also afforded me peace of parental mind), and there was no way that $2200 was going to purchase a car that did all those things. I called her back and told her to go ahead and make the arrangement for the repair.

A few days later, when the repairs were finished, we drove over to pick up the car and settle the bill. The total we were given was $500 less than we had been quoted. Good news for sure, but unexpected. We both asked why that was so. We were informed that another customer, who had been sitting in the waiting room when Grace learned about the full extent of the damages, wanted help Grace out. She wished to remain anonymous. We were speechless. 

She had witnessed Grace in a moment of emotional turmoil and reached out with an act of great kindness. Perhaps Grace reminded her of her own daughter. Or maybe she remembered what it felt like to be young and on the verge of taking flight. Maybe she didn't know that Grace had a support system that would be helping her out. Maybe she did. It doesn't really matter 'why' she did it - only that she did. I titled this entry with a question mark, because, as special as it was - I don't think it was a miracle. It was just one person reaching out and helping another person.  Despite our jaded, cynical, and boorish world, I refuse to believe that any act of kindness is a miracle. It is a just a person, at one moment of time, choosing to help make another person's life just a little bit better. Something we should all strive to do.

So "thank you" to Grace's anonymous benefactor. I hope you know that your action was not lost on Grace and me. We will be paying your gift forward with a donation to the Connections Homeless Shelter here in Mankato. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone.