Karma

Yesterday as I was leaving work and walking towards my bus stop, I saw this woman hunched over and holding onto the side of the building. She was slowly inching her way along the brick wall, much like a little girl first learning to skate drags herself along the wall of the skating rink. Living in Chicago, I see all sorts of people on the sidewalk doing all sorts of things I never thought people did (much less on sidewalks) which explains the four thoughts that crossed my mind nearly simultaneously: "Is she on drugs? Maybe she's crazy. Does she need help? She looks like Nana!"

Nana is my 93-year-old great grandmother who lives in a nursing home in New York. I will be visiting her in a couple of weeks, but I don't get to see her nearly enough. Much as I would've loved it to be her shuffling in front of me, the idea that she plotted an elaborate escape, staged a nursing home coup, and hitch hiked her way across a few states in order to be walking down Lincoln Avenue (and holding a drumstick no less [the kind you play drums with, not the kind you eat]) just didn't ever cross my mind. But I did wonder... what if that was my Nana? Would someone help her if she needed help? What if this is somebody else's Nana?

As I glanced over at that woman and wondered about her drug habits/sanity/need/resemblance to my Nana, I wish I could say that a Biblical story came to mind. But I can't. Well, that's not true either. I could say such a thing... but I'd be lieing. Now I grew up in the Church - played the Littlest Angel in our Nativity scene, went to Camp Christian, sang in the choir, attended service most Sundays, served as an accolyte and then as a deacon - but I can't in good conscience pretend that I have any Bible verses memorized. Or that the related Bible verses I Googled while writing this entry made a cameo in my thoughts at the time. However, I'd like to think that the basic concepts I learned at Church stuck with me (thanks, Mom!). So, even though I thought that woman might be on drugs or might be crazy (or both), I also thought she might need help. And even though she's different from me, she's still the same as me.

So I asked her if she needed a hand. She said she was walking back to her apartment (I think she uses the term "walking" loosely, she didn't seem to be walking anywhere). She looked like she needed help, but she didn't really answer my question "yes" or "no." Knowing it can be difficult to say "Yes, I need help" when someone asks, I decided to try a different approach. I extended my arm for her to hold onto and said, "I can walk with you until you get there." Now, I had no idea at this point how far "there" would be, so for all I knew I had just signed away my whole evening with that one gesture. Luckily for me we were only about 20 feet from her front door.

But I learned a lot in that 20 feet. She told me (in thick German-accented perfect English) that she used to be a seceretary downtown. One day as she was walking down the steps from the El, she slipped on some ice and took a pretty nasty fall. She did irreparable damage to her inner ear, which has made it difficult for her to move quickly without getting dizzy ever since. She told me she adopted two cats from the Anti-Cruelty Society and that she only went out because she had to get food for them. She told me that her landlord is Puerto Rican and she wants to move because all the people in her building swear and yell and smoke dope. She thanked me for helping her and told me it was very kind and beautiful of me do so. She never did tell me what that drumstick was for.

But she did tell me that her cats talk to her. And yell at her.

Turns out she's a little crazy after all. But her craziness didn't negate the fact that she needed help. Or the fact that it felt good to help her. Because even though she wasn't my Nana, she still could be somebody's Nana. And reflecting on it now, I'm reminded of something in the Bible where Jesus said something to the effect that you don't have to do good things for God, because doing good things for anyone is doing good things for God (Google says it's Matthew 25:40 'just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’) Even though I'm not terribly religious, I can get behind that idea. (PS-When did the Bible become gender neutral?)

You know what happened next? I stopped in Potbelly to pick up a sandwich and a sugar cookie (thank you De'Lon Grant for turning me onto the amazingness that is the Potbelly sugar cookie! Sugar sprinkles on top? Who are they kidding, we all know it's really crack!) I was feeling really good that I helped this little old lady. And because I felt good, I was smiling and interacting with all the employees and making them laugh and smile. And to thank me for making everyone else's day better, the manager comped my meal. How awesome!

Now I don't believe in a Karma bank where you get back everything you put in, good or bad. I think that's much too simplistic. But I do believe that in general, you get what you give. Not because you've earned it or banked it, but because giving something, for better or for worse, changes you. And people pick up on that change and give back to you accordingly. Not always, but generally.

As I left Potbelly, a seemingly homeless woman asked me if I could give her some change so she could get something to eat. A similar set of thoughts crossed my mind as with the little old lady just a few blocks earlier, "Is she on drugs? Is she crazy? Does she need help? Is she really homeless?" But I looked at that woman, and even though she was very different from me, she was also the same as me.

"No," I said, "but you can have my sugar cookie." And when I handed her that cookie, her face lit up. Maybe I gave her a little change after all.



Further reading:
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/061217/25happy.health.htm
http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/happiness/happy-people-live-longer.htm
http://longevity.about.com/od/mentalfitness/p/positive_aging.htm