Awesome.

An awesome thing just happened.

I don’t mean awesome like how I use it most of the time; I mean it really.

Awesome.

But first my day started out the other kind of awesome, the one that means cool. I heard my alarm and got up and ready for church on time. Nothing flooded before or after church. My bus ride was both pleasant and uneventful. I got to hear the wonderful preaching of an elder I had not previously heard preach. My delightful friend Taryn offered me a ride home afterward.

It was all awesome; cool, great, pleasant.

Then I waited like two hours for Ashley to navigate her way through the treacherous city by car and make it to Great Neck. I was starving’ like Marvin so I took her and her two travel companions to Wild Ginger, a place I have taken others in the past.

While she mocked me for being old I gloated over a glass of wine.

Young people.

We went on a little adventure into the city and I finally got to the High Line Park, a little gem elevated on the edge of the West side. It’s a stretch of old railroad that has been converted into a boardwalk-type park. There are some food vendors, although the advertised bakery was missing. And there are a lot of scenic views and gardens and sitting areas.

We had to go find our own bakery since there wasn’t one and advertising had us wanting cake. We found a good one not too far away and had some wonderfully perfect cake and cupcakes.

Back on the High Line after dark, we sat around talking until it was time to go back. The three of them are on a road trip that is making me green with envy.

Whatever; I got home first.

And right before that is when something really awesome happened.

I probably wouldn’t have even written tonight if this hadn’t happened. I walked with Ashley and the others back to their car, parked in a shopping center near the train station to retrieve some stuff I hadn’t wanted to carry around all night. Then I left them to go get a cab because their car was literally STUFFED with their crap.

I called a cab and then stood there being bored. Another lady was waiting ahead of me so as the first car pulled up and she got in, I just stood there hopelessly annoyed because I hate waiting for cabs.

So, so much.

And then this woman comes walking over from the shopping center. She looked like she was about forty months pregnant and she was on the verge of tears when she talked to me. She wasn’t horribly young and she said her husband was with her and she pointed to the car across the street where he waited. Their car had broken down, they were from out of town, they had a hotel in Mineola and the cop who had come when they called was offering no help at all.

She had called a cab but she couldn’t pay for it.

I could see the cop with his back turned, trying to pretend he wasn’t there.

All she wanted was cab fare and she was pulling out her ID to give me her information so I could track her down and get paid back.

I got so excited!

I started this blog after I moved here, so I don’t know if I ever covered this here and I’m sure not going to go look, but,

The day I came up here for my job interview I lost my Amtrak ticket to go home. Amtrak has horrible policies and worse customer service, so there I was, stranded in Penn Station with no idea what to do next.

On the verge of tears, I stood in the line at customer service and listened to the girl in front of me panicking about being in the same situation. Before I could even plead my case, the two ladies working the desk there were shaking their heads and telling this other girl they couldn’t help her.

An old man standing off to the side stepped in and gave her money for a hotel and told the ladies to help her find a ticket for the next day. Then he gave me money for my ticket and told them to find me a last minute seat on the last train headed my way that night. It was in fifteen minutes, so while I asked a few times for an address to send back the $50 he said no, and told me to pay it forward.

I was kind of crying when I thanked him and ran to my train.

I haven’t ever seen him in there again, and I’ve checked.

So here was this pregnant woman, in tears, asking for cab fare to Mineola and probably very confused as to why my whole face lit up as I opened my wallet.

I got to pay it forward in the most literal way possible.

She insisted I contact her to get paid back, so I quickly told her I had been in her shoes, only not pregnant, and that I was instructed to pay it forward and that’s all I wanted her to do.

She thanked me like ten times and then her cab drove by so she had to run-waddle back to her husband and I did a little happy dance.

And then I realized that my cab had never come.

I paced a for a few minutes and then called the cab company again and did my best to sound patient and understanding even though I loathe waiting.

So, so much.

Eventually, a car did come and I made it home to tell you this awesome story.

I love, love, love what that man did for me and I can’t believe how nice it feels to be able to actually pay it forward. I hope that lady keeps the cycle going, but never knowing has a sort of awesomeness to it, too.
God doesn’t tell us to do unto others only if you find out that they are doing it, too. He just says to do it, do as you would have done to you. I would have someone help me when I am stuck in Penn Station, the worst place on earth besides Port Authority. So “paying it forward” is the best way to “do unto others.”

What a neat way to learn that lesson. I know that anyone who is really in a tight spot like that never forgets the act of kindness that gets them out. I know I never will forget that man and so many other people who got me through my transition here.

And I know God will use my tiny little act of Christ-imitation to His glory.

And that is awesome.