Just at the Right Time (Sometimes)

 

One of the Sisters fell while out for her evening walk earlier this week at the retreat center where I work doing massages. She was heading down a rolling part of the center’s driveway with her walker and got going a little too fast.  The Sisters live at the retreat center, but their rooms are separate from the public part of the center. They have their own dining hall, their own bedrooms and chapel. There is also an assisted living area for them when they reach the point that they need extra care. People often ask me if I give the Sisters massages; I don’t. I have a good friend who does, though, so they are well cared for.

I was at the center talking to a newly arrived group of quilters in the big hall that overlooks the driveway, hoping to sign them up for many massages, when one of them shouted, “Someone just fell!”

So much for building a lot of massage momentum.

We turned to the picture windows and there was Sister, on her belly on the pavement, looking very much like she had decided to take a little rest, and if she would have had a towel below her, it might have seemed like she was on the beach, head in her hands,  elbows on the sand, staring out at the waves.

Except she was facing downhill and gazing at the blacktop .

One of the quilters and I ran out.

Sister wasn’t hurt, she said, but she was afraid to try to get up by herself. I called the main office and was told that the nursing staff would be out to help her.

The quilter went back to the quilting hall, and I sat down on the pavement next to Sister

“I can’t lift my head to see who you are,” she said.

So I got down on my belly and laid down next to her so she could recognize me.

Soon, the nursing staff arrived, three of them.  They were calm and efficient. Sister was in good hands.

It was unfortunate that she fell. I keep thinking of how lucky she was, though. Not to fall. But that there were people in the hall facing her direction, that I was able to run out and quickly call the nurses, that I had that number stored in my phone, but mostly that she wasn’t seriously hurt.

Because there are many days when there is nobody in that area, when that entire back section of the campus is deserted. If she had fallen on one of those days, I wonder how long she would have laid there before someone noticed she was missing? How long until she would have gotten help?

She said to me, while we were waiting for the nurses, “At least it’s a nice day out. It’s not raining. But of course, we need the rain.”

We have had beautiful, sunny, 70 degree days this week. And though we are aware that it is lovely, and we are trying to enjoy it, nobody is very happy about it anymore.  Because (Of course you know) we need the rain.

She didn’t hit her head, she said. Her knuckle on one hand looked a little scraped. That was all.

I wonder how often people show up at the right time. Sister got aid quickly because there  just happened to be a quilting group arriving that I needed to talk to. Maybe we help people all the time without even knowing it. By letting them out into traffic, even when we are in a hurry. By giving a compliment to a stranger at the market, because we really do think their shirt, or shoes, or purse is lovely. Maybe those words make a difference. Maybe each of us is helped in a million ways every day, but the moments are so plain and unremarkable that we don’t even notice them or honor them for the mini-miracles that they are.

But not always. Sometimes, the timing is all wrong.

I keep thinking about the family that recently perished in a head-on collision up the interstate from where I live, only a few days before Thanksgiving. There was a drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway who hit them, killing four of the five family members.  They were on their way to the Grand Canyon for a little vacation. The father and mother were killed, along with a 9-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy. The only survivor was the youngest child, a toddler.

I wish that they could have been a few minutes further up the road, or that they had left their house ten minutes later, or hadn’t stopped for coffee on their way out, or hadn’t taken a break at the rest area by my house.  Or what if they could have taken a different route? Or had decided to go to Disneyland instead of the Grand Canyon? Or had just stayed home, eating a turkey dinner from the supermarket, if nobody wanted to cook? Then they would still be here.

(Mostly? I wish the driver of the wrong way car  had never gotten in a car after drinking. Why couldn’t he have just slept in his car for a few hours and sobered up?)

How many terrible things could have been avoided if the timing had just been a little different?

But how many terrible things are avoided because people show up at just the right time?

I guess it’s not ours to know.