Nine a.m. Saturday. July 4, 2015.
Knocked my coffee off the table at McDonald's just a little while ago. This was more than annoying and embarrassing. It felt like a defeat. I'd been feeling proud of myself for getting it to the table to begin with. I have to do a lot of juggling when I go places these days, having to carry and shift and handle and lift one-handed in order to keep the other hand on the cane, and I've become pretty adept at it. Carrying a cup of coffee while loaded down with my computer bag and several books and a notebook has gotten to be routine. But I got careless when I was setting up my netbook and over he cup went.
What made it more embarrassing was that it landed right in front of the mop of an employee cleaning up after the early breakfast rush. I suppose it hardly added to his work and it was lucky in a way that he was right there to contain the spill but I still felt like a dope and a nuisance and I apologized profusely and abjectly.
He smiled me off.
He was an older guy---an old man, really, pushing 70, although healthily plump- and rosy-cheeked and unwrinkled and unlined. He saw how upset I was and made an effort to assure me he wasn't the least bothered or put out. He'd have it taken care of in no time, meanwhile I should go to the counter and ask for a refill. Which is what I did. Picked up my empty cup and headed off. But not before I thanked him and apologized again.
"No problem," he said, with what I think I heard as a trace of the Caribbean in his soft, pleasant voice. "The day is not ruined. You should look at it this way. Every morning we wake up, it's a blessing."
Had to agree.
When I got back to the table, being much more careful with the cup this time, the spill was mopped up and he'd wheeled away his bucket to take on another task. He was escorting a group of women to what I guessed was their regular set of tables for their Saturday meeting of their breakfast club.
They were all older, one very much older, possibly over ninety, and she had her arm hooked through his. She was tall, taller than him, even bent over her cane, and extremely thin, but not that frail. She was dressed up, with jewelry, and wore her snow white hair in a poodle cut. She had the look and bearing of someone not intending to deny old age but determined not to let it defeat her. She leaned on the man but I don't think it was as much for support as for comfort and out of gratitude for the companionship. Her very thin, very white forearm rested on his plump, brown one, and when they reached the table, she patted his hand with reflexive but real affection.
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