Today was a very windy and cold day here in Los Angeles. It was also a day in which I had to deliver flowers.
As I walked to my car in order to make the last delivery, the beautiful arrangement was knocked from my car onto the ground leaving nothing but fallen flowers and shattered glass in its wake.
I stood for a second waiting for my brain to process what had actually happened, when I heard a voice, “Oh no… .” I looked up and saw a vibrant woman examining my mini disaster. I think I muttered, “This is the second time this happened today…. I shouldn’t have…” She quickly said, “Here, I’ll go into the shop with you and tell them that we ran into each other… I was rushing, it was ALL MY FAULT.” I looked at her kind of confused for a moment…. thinking, “WOW. That’s REALLY nice of you.”
So, after picking up the biggest pieces of glass, we walked into the shop together sort of giggling. Then as soon as we stepped inside she got louder and said, “I’m so sorry.” (Maybe she is an actress). We told the person working what had “happened” and as my co-worker looked at the shattered arrangement in disbelief (she also was having a “difficult” day)… my new friend/helper shot a smile/wink in my direction.
My co-worker said nothing. Finally, the woman (whose name I sadly cannot remember), handed over ten dollars and said, “Here this will cover the cost of the vase”. She apologized again and walked away.
As I walked outside to clean up the rest of the glass I saw her again and asked her name… which like I said, I cannot remember (it was a long character building/beat myself up with self judgement kind of day). Anyway, I thanked her and she said, “You’re welcome. Right when I drove into this parking lot, I thought I might have wrecked my tire, but it was fine so I wanted to give back.” I totally got it..
What is so cool about this is first of all, she was looking for a way to give back for her tire and there I was the sort of “damsel in distress” arriving for my role in the play of her story right on time. Moments before I was discussing my latest conundrum with a co-worker, which was since my boss wouldn’t be in all weekend, I would not get paid and I didn’t have enough gas in my car to get me through until Monday… and no one is allowed to pay anyone other than the boss. Then the wind knocked the vase off of my car and prompted the woman to give the money for the vase. When my co-worker got the money she said something about, “We’ll pay it forward” and then said, “There’s your gas money.”
COOL, RIGHT!?!
I have a small feeling it has a little to do with the money I gave out for gas the other night. :) I LOVE that I followed my instinct. (To see the gas money story, please go to the blog post preceding this one).
I love the easy flow of the universe when I choose to ALLOW it.
Dear Universe:
KEEP IT COMING! THANK YOU!
That is so great! Escpecially that her first instinct was to give to someone else after her fortunate experience with her tire. Most people would just see it as a bit of good luck in their favor and not think to pass it on.
I just watched “Pay it Forward” this weekend at a SR. High Retreat that I was leading. But it’s the best seeing real scenes like this one play out.
<3 K