I chanced to meet an angel the other day. I had borrowed a car and was running last minute errands on my way home the day before Christmas Eve. As I passed one of the local Food Banks I thought I’d better go in, maybe luck out and get some carrots and onions.
I stood in line, got my ticket, got my small bag of stuff and was leaving when I overheard a guy say there were extra hampers. On enquiry sure enough I qualified for one (why am I always surprised?)--Score! Turkey and cranberries were back on the menu.
Another line up, fill in another form, another line up, hand it in . . . it was just like Christmas at home with all our personalities bunched up in that small space together. As you can imagine you get to know people like family by the time we were all directed to the final line up outside the building.
I noticed a young mom standing against the wall, jiggling an adorable two-year old child in a stroller. She had been behind me in the line but had dropped out. She was punching with her thumbs into her phone and I noticed she was crying a little. I went over to her and asked her if I could help.
The thing is, I hadn't intended on going to the Food Bank this season, didn't think it a good idea when there were so many who were so worse off. But there I was, and there she was: my Christmas miracle.
She was at the Bank for the first time and a little freaked out. I remembered my first trip and how embarrassed I was, how undeserving I felt. How hard I cried later. There's a knack to fitting into the environment at these places too. To give her time to regain her composure I admitted it can be unnerving at first. I gave her a quick tutorial: Never make eye contact with anyone, never be jolly to cover your nervousness (looks like condescension), and if you’re feeling unsafe look at the guard. I suggested she try it. She raised startlingly clear grey eyes and searched for him, he noticed her right away and smiled back and she relaxed a bit more.
She said she hadn’t expected the hamper and had dropped out of the line because she had no way of getting it home. She was trying to call someone to come and get her.
I asked her where she lived and would you believe it? She was just a few blocks from my house. I knew then why I'd got that sudden urge to drop by. I suggested we get our hampers together and I could take her and her daughter home. But she said she had come by bus and hadn't brought a car seat.
At this point, we'd made our way outside to the line up running along the outside of the building. There was a big empty and nicely warm room inside but food banks are like that. Awesome folks with a bit of a “but we’ve always done it this way” kind of a blind spot about some things.
It was very cold so this was not going to be fun. Stoically, I got my chin up and my coat from the car and pretty soon we were freezing. She had come only in a hoodie and her daughter’s fingers were turning red because the baby wouldn’t keep her mitts on. I could have asked to let us wait inside I suppose but you know how it is.
What we didn’t know was if anyone who had preregistered arrived with “A Letter”, they got to go in ahead of the rest of us. The Letter People kept arriving (past the time they were supposed to) so it was a little under an hour before it was finally our turn. We were so cold the young mom couldn’t stop shaking, I was stiff, sore and ignoring a healthy migraine, and the baby was crying. Lots of fun.
While we waited some folks got very upset, especially as the Letter folks dribbled past us, and my heart went out to them. You might think people standing in a food bank line up are all heads down and meekly compliant. Not so. We're human and at the end of our coping rope and many are late on our meds like I was. I think we all did well today given the circumstances.
The room inside was stacked high with boxes filled with holiday goods. The nice lady behind the table taking my form gave me an encouraging smile. We moved forward. In short order we were back outside loading up the car.
The plan was she would take the bus home with the baby and I would drop her stuff off for her. I noticed she was upset again and trying to hide it. She admitted she didn't quite believe I would do that. It was a bad moment for both of us. Having no choice but to trust when trusting someone has not gone well in the past is not a comfortable place. I reassured her as well as I could just as the baby started fussing in earnest. Her stress must have been off the scale.
A short while later I left the stuff by the side door of the house where she lived and I drove off. But after a few minutes I decided to return and leave her a note. I told myself I wanted to make sure she got it all inside okay. Truth is I was worried if the stuff got stolen I didn’t want her thinking I’d done a runner!
When she opened the door she looked away and started crying again. I gave her a little hug and she wiped away at her cheeks and a smile came through. While we exchanged awkwardly expressed hopes for each other I looked around the tiny living area. Her daughter was happily kicking her feet in her high chair, smooshing something into her tray. The kitchen cupboards were partly open and they were bare as bones. I looked at the tidy apartment, at the tiny pile of presents under the little tree. She had so little. And yet there she stood in a sea of groceries, big smile, looking like she'd won the lottery. I adjusted my attitude to include more gratitude for the little things.
As I turned to leave I realized I didn’t even know her name.
“It’s Angela”, she said. "Angel for short". Of course, how could it be anything else?
