An Afternoon Rendezvous with a Stranger
Spiritual experiences can vary based on how you perceive situations in life. These experiences do not necessarily have to come in a form that enlightens you, or awakens you, but can happen as a matter of fact, except that it is unique and unusual. One such experience happened to me today.
I was meeting a friend for coffee — he wanted to get out of the house, and I needed his thoughts on a project I was working on. So we decided to meet at a coffee shop by the lake. By the time I parked and walked over, I found him sitting at the table on the deck and an older lady talking to him and playing with his dog.
This lady was old, probably around 60–70years, asian, and was wearing a loosely fit dress, what we call a nighty in India. As soon as I sat down, she noticed me and smiled, I returned the smile but did not pay much attention as I was hoping they would wrap up their conversation and she would move on so that we could go on with our afternoon coffee and discussions.
At that very moment, she said, “You know, I am very lonely. Why, you can all come to my house and I will give you tea and coffee, and ice-cold water. I live right here, come with me”. I was taken aback. My eyes widened beneath my sunglasses and eyebrows raised, I looked at my friend. In almost a deliberate effort to not overthink the situation he yelled, “Sure! Why Not! We would love to go!”. I tilted my head towards him with a frown to confirm if he was really sure. He repeated the same phrase, same decibel level, same excitement. I looked over at the lady, and she had a bright wide smile that had taken over her face and she nodded at me, and asked us to come along. In an effort to not disappoint my friend or this older lady, who was probably as old as my own grandma, I followed her.
She walked through the shade, in a fast walk which neither is a run nor a jog. Older people have a way to walk fast which almost looks cartoonish, and adorable.
She asked my name, where I was from and did the same routine with my friend and his dog. With enthusiasm she would say how beautiful Indian women are, and then she told us her names — her Japanese name, and her “official” American name, which took her a while to remember, since her husband never called her by her American name.
She brought us into her home, a lovely condo on the lake with a breath taking view. We removed our footwear at the door, and I felt at home as we entered.
We walked into a bicultural home, filled with Japanese and American books, movies, and music and a lovely big piano at the center of her house. Her dog came to us with utmost scrutiny, not quite ready to trust the newbies in his house.
Continuing to place my cynical self in front of me, I went and sat down and looked around skeptically. She brought up her lonliness back to us. She had lost her husband and was still grieving his absence in her life. She repeated herself numerous times, but with the same enthusiasm. She showed us every picture she had of her husband in the house. She introduced us to her life with so much love and warmth that I could not help myself but surrender to this unusual afternoon.
She offered us numerous things to eat/drink, but we settled for ice-cold water. We all sat down to then talk about her life journey from Japan to America, from music, to her family. She was a delight to talk to, but often forgot what she wanted to say. She would remember the most irrelevant things, like how Indians are originally caucasians, but would forget her daughter or son’s names when asked.
About 45mins had passed when the phone rang and she spoke these lovely words, “I made two new friends today. They are with me at home. They are young friends. Come soon”. She smiled at us as she kept the phone down, with a little tight shrug in her shoulders, almost like she was a child who wanted to surprise her parents. She mentioned that her daughter would be home in less than 30mins, and that we should wait until she arrives.
Our afternoon rendezvous continued over ice-cold water and repeated commentary on the same photographs of her husband with the same happiness in her voice, filled with a void in her life that no one can fill.
She asked my name, where I was from and did the same routine with my friend and his dog. With enthusiasm she would say how beautiful Indian women are, and then she told us her names — her Japanese name, and her “official” American name, which took her a while to remember, since her husband never called her by her American name.
Her daughter arrived, and gave us a friendly smile before she came and sat down with us. She asked us if we met at the park downstairs, and we told her we met at the coffee shop. She was surprised and mentioned how her mother had not walked that far in over a year. She was happy.
Just then, her grandson, who is a teenage-college kid, walked in. He too joined us in this lovely afternoon spontanity. We all sat around the tiny living room, talking about everything from public school system, to number of continents, to classical music across east and west. It felt like home.
We all were strangers who knew almost nothing about each other, and yet we were chatting like long-lost friends, of three generations and my friend and me were stuck somewhere in-between these generations.
After over two hours of being at their home, we decided it was time to leave. The old lady brought a pen and pad for us to write down our names and numbers and offered hers to us. She insisted we come back for a meal and meet her atleast once in three months. She hugged us and offered us the happiest of smiles I had seen from anyone recently.
You see, she had Alzheimer's. Her daughter was a school teacher who was home for the summer, and since it had been only two days since school started, she got worried about her daughter not being home. And hence, she decided to walk down to see if she could find her daughter, walked to the coffee shop where she has not walked to in over a year, saw the dog that looked a lot like her own, stopped to pet him, and ended up chatting with us, and that is how we ended up becoming a part of her life.
Life sometimes brings you at these moments where you wonder why. Just why. Why did this happen. Why did she walk over today of all days and run into us. Why did she bring us home, and why did we go.
But you know what, life has a way of showing us things. Like how life in itself is bigger than the petty everyday things we worry about. Like how she kept praising her husband like no one I ahve ever seen in my life, and that is a life well-lived. Like how both her daughter and grandson’s upbringing is so strong that they are wonderful people who treat her with utmost respect and sincerity. Like how life is beautiful, it is what you make of it.
This experience proved to me how strong and brave she was to bring strangers to her home, and how fearful I was to accept her invite and go with her. Had I let fear taken over, I would’ve never experienced this beautiful afternoon, and I would have no story but a boring coffee meeting to write about, which would end in less than two sentences.
Sometimes life opens your heart, alleviates your fear, and gives you a spiritual experience that you cannot quite fathom, but just let the experience linger in your heart, cherish the moments and tell the story for generations to come.
