The Kindness of People

Occasionally I see in a thread on Facebook or somewhere else a lament about how the world at large treats people with handicaps—from indifference to cruelty. Well, I’m here to counter that. Since I’ve been on a walker, I have found most people go out of their way to help me—they hold doors even though I am sometimes painfully slow, they step back in line to let me cut in, they reach out to steady my walker if I have to go down a curb, they smile and greet me when just passing. And it’s not pity—more, I think it’s a recognition that I exist as a person above and beyond my inability to walk without assistance.

Today I wanted to drop something off at the cleaners. Jordan goes that way to take Jacob to and from school, but I wanted my one red sweater clean for the holiday which meant get it in now and get it back early in the week. I parked outside, thinking the phone number was painted on the window. It wasn’t. So I asked a young woman retrieving her cleaning to stick her head back in and ask if they’d give me curbside service. She willingly did so, and another nice young lady came to collect my shirt. She went back in to get me a business card and said they have several customers for whom they do this. “Just honk or call next time,” she said.

Then I went to Curbside Pickup at Central Market. I think I’ve already waxed eloquent about how great this service is, but today I had to exchange an item—they gave me Parmesan in a green shaker, which I despise (it has wood shavings in it to keep it from clumping, or so the cheesemonger told me) and I wanted fresh ground. Exchange made cheerfully, and an extra container of Parmesan included at their expense (I think I have a lifetime supply). Today they had substituted dipper chips for the corn chips I requested—I explained that really wouldn’t work because I was going to use them in a salad. “No problem.” The runner went and searched the shelves until she found a suitable bag of chips. We chatted, and when she learned about the walker, she urged me to use the comments opportunity on the order form to make sure I got exactly what I wanted. We parted on happy terms with a cheery, “Merry Christmas.”

At my doctor’s office, an aide comes out to make sure I neither fall nor get mugged (Jordan’s two big worries); at the podiatrist’s, his wife escorts me in and out. The lovely young woman who cuts my hair makes house calls and when I reminded her I was now driving, she said she’d rather come to the house—I think we both like the visiting time. Daily I increase the stores and other places where willing employees will come out to my car. Their help enables me to run errands without bothering Jordan—we reached sort of a turning point this week when Jordan said, “I need you to run some errands for me.”

I think it’s like anything else in life. Being on a walker or exhibiting some other handicap does make a difference in how people treat you. But the difference depends on how you treat others and how you signal that you expect to be treated. Got a chip on your shoulder? Others will sense it and react accordingly, but as my mom always told me, “Smile, and the world smiles with you.”

And these days when we hear so much about cruel indifference to others—the border patrol letting a young girl die on their watch, a judge trying to rob millions of health care, a congressman who wanted to cut food benefits to a million poverty-stricken agricultural workers to give them an incentive to improve their lives (really, he said that)—it’s wonderful to find that most people do indeed have a heart of gold. Just call me Pollyanna!