Rush Hour in the Country

On my way to pick up groceries curbside early in the day, I got stuck behind a school bus.  I was on a country road with curves and bends, and it was hard to see a safe place to pass.  So I followed.  The bus stopped at a small house where a man waited with a child in a heavy duty inclined wheelchair, more like a bed than a chair.  A lift unfolded toward the back of the bus and was slowly lowered to the ground.  The man turned the chair around, pushed it onto the lift, and secured it. He handed the large backpack he had been wearing to unseen waiting hands.  The lift slowly rose, and the person inside the bus unfastened the chair and rolled it inside.  I assume there was a similar process of securing the chair in the bus.  Then the lift was folded up, and the bus moved on.

I don’t know who that family is.  I don’t know anything about the adult or adults on the bus.  I don’t know if the other children were kind or cruel.  And I don’t know what it is like to spend a life in a chair like that.  But sitting there and waiting and watching made me wonder.  

 

Courage comes in many forms.  Getting up every day to tend to a child in a chair takes courage.  Driving a school bus takes courage.  Going to school in these pandemic times takes courage.  There was so much courage on display during the 20 minutes or so that I sat and waited.  

 

Life for me has slowed some in the past 18 months, but I still find myself rushing around with chores and projects to do.  It was good to stop, good to reflect on the quiet lives of courage and caring that are all around me.  It was good not to rush.