As I may have mentioned once or twice in this column, I used to live on Queen Anne but now live on a sailboat in Ballard. Twenty years on Queen Anne, the longest I’ve lived anywhere, created connections that will never be broken.
I drive across the Ballard Bridge regularly to visit friends, go to the gym, and meet with my book club. It’s not hard to find an excuse to make my way over the water and up the hill. When I hit the top of Dravus after turning off 15th, take a right, then a left, wind my way around the arterial, past the cemetery and onto the top of the hill, I am home. I breathe easy and feel safe and content as I round that last corner.
One day about mid-way up Dravus, thinking about my errand and planning my day, I noticed an elderly Asian woman struggling to walk up the very steep hill.
Rather than use the sidewalk, she was on the street. It was hot and the sun was directly overhead. Cars were zooming up the hill, swerving to avoid her, dwarfing her with their SUV-ness and loud engines. Her gait was labored and she seemed to be in pain. How in the world will she make it up the hill, I wondered? Someone might hit her.
I turned right at the next block, parked and ran to get her out of the street. Her English was limited so I gave my arm, pointed to my car and then to the top of the hill. She smiled and nodded with understanding and agreement.
She climbed up into the passenger seat, grinning through the window as I closed the door behind her. By the time I got around to the driver’s seat she had taken her wallet out and shoved two dollars at me. Obviously I refused to take them.
Still smiling, she made a “T” with her hands, which I interpreted to mean the top of the hill. At the top I turned left at her direction but passed the drive up to her house. I turned around and parked the car and we “talked” for a little while. She told me her name, where she is from.
She told me a lot of things that I didn’t understand. But we connected in a way that words cannot express. She thanked me and thanked me and kept trying to give me money, pulling dollar bills out of her wallet. “No!” I refused again.
I pointed to my heart and then to hers hoping she would understand what I meant. All of a sudden we looked at each other, embraced in what was, for me, a hug of gratitude for this encounter, this connection.
When I at last got her to her destination, she ripped off the bracelet around her wrist and insisted on giving it to me - only after I again refused the money. Worn down, I thought, “She must need to do this. To maintain her pride she has to give me someth ing.”
I remembered hearing somewhere that this is cultural and so I accepted the bracelet. She kept pointing at my engagement ring and then at the bracelet and saying “Same. Same.”
I wondered if she was telling me that her bracelet was valuable. It looked simple but it was very pretty. Tiny, perfect balls in various shades of green strung on an elastic band. I thanked her and we hugged one more time before I helped her out of the car and up her steps.
When I think of her, I don’t think of an old woman, struggling, in pain, alone. I think of her joy, her gratitude, her courage, and her independence in spite of her limitations. I think of the trust she put in me, a stranger, climbing into my car as if we were old friends. I think of her as a friend. An old friend. I will probably never see her again. But she will always be with me.
When we give, when we step outside our own needs and attend to the needs of others, what we receive is far greater. My father used to jokingly say, “ ‘Tis nobler to give than to receive and, since I want my children to be noble, I am going to allow you to give to me whenever you want!” We would laugh. But it’s the truth.
When you give, as long as it’s with the right spirit and, as long as you remember to replenish yourself from time to time, you end up far richer than when you don’t give.
This woman, although I didn’t know her when I lived on Queen Anne, was a neighbor. And it’s my neighbors that keep me going back up that hill.
When I wear this bracelet now, it reminds me of the connection we had, of the life gift I received by simply veering off the road and obeying my body and mind’s impulses to help this woman. Of the hug we exchanged and the rare and unexpected encounter between an older Asian woman and a middle-aged Queen Anne woman who lives on a sailboat in Ballard.
And that’s a great gift.
Irene Hopkins writes essays about mid-life, aging parents, women and whatever is currently on her mind. hopkinsirene23@gmail.com