Of Gratitude; A Random Post

E. B White once said he wakes up in the morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor it and that alone is difficult for him. He must have had the same feelings I had last Saturday morning at the bus stop. After my numerous errands that excluded retail therapy (which I desperately need), I stood at the bus station waiting for a bus home. My feet gave in so I squeezed myself between total strangers on the stone bench.
I shamefully listened in on their conversation for a lack of earphones to zone out the noise. I leaned back and saw a very old man in foetal position sleeping on a newspaper just under the bench. He looked weak and lifeless like old leaves pressed between the pages of a book. I looked at him for a long moment as though he was a verse I had learned once then forgotten; like the time I forgot my lines during a school play.


But fact is I didn’t know him, but his face is a face I have seen before in other people; in the old man who hawks matchboxes at the roadside and probably earns less than Ksh 50 a day, in the sixty year old man who walks past our gate in the evenings reporting for watchman duty at a nearby estate. Every day he walks as though his body is about to give out to old age but he continues the struggle in order to live.

That's why that Saturday, I recognized that old man’s face; the face of despair. I thought of him this morning while I talked to my saloonist. You see this post is not about the old man but my saloonist; of gratitude.

Her name is Carol, a wonderful spirit, a single mother with a Ten year old son. She lives in a tiny single roomed house. As she did my hair we talked about everything from politics, to church, to men and then she opened up and told me about her son’s condition. He was born with a disability and he is her full time job. She takes him to a normal school but she says it is different there because he has special needs, something other students and teachers don’t understand.

She enthusiastically told me of her intentions to enroll him to a school for special children but it will cost her Ksh 80,000, money she doesn’t have at the moment, she is hoping her son will get a sponsor. I hope she will too, so her son can get the help he needs.

What truly touched my heart was the welcome she gave me; she prepared breakfast and we shared in bread and strong tea. The bread wasn’t buttered and the tea had no milk but as she told us to bow our heads in prayer there was so much gratitude in her voice, gratitude that I realized I had not shown in my day to day life. I was humbled that in little they were grateful. Isn't it where the secret of life lies; in gratitude, that at the end of the day gratitude has a way of giving us hope in our situations, that it can make enough out of little? 

We wake up every day and it seems like we always find something to complain about; the weather, nagging bosses or workmates who never knock before they enter your office door and the morning and evening traffic, yet we forget to give thanks, we forget to thank God for the simplest of things; breathe of life.

I realize now there are many times I have overlooked my blessings and instead counted the many things that I didn’t have.

There is so much to be grateful for and Carol reminded me that. For the little things that I think is normal to have, like milk in my tea and butter for my bread, like good health. As for the old man, well, we may never get to know if life truly has a balance; why somethings are the way they are, we may not even have it all to save the world but there is something little we can do and it will definitely go a long way.

*long sigh*
 photo from here