Saturday, July 09, 2016

Until We Cried

"We need a green pepper," Joe said as we headed home. We agreed that he'd run into the little local grocery store across the street from where we live. I can go in there but I never do, it's just accessible enough to be called accessible but the size of the store makes it such that it takes work and the cooperation of others in order to get around. I wait outside. So as we near the store, Joe veers off and I head to a small outdoor plaza area.

Just as I go up the ramp to the plaza I make a turn to my right. Doing this I cross right into the path of the man coming behind me that I didn't notice. It startled me when I saw him and realized that I'd cut him off, I said automatically, "Sorry." He, though he'd been cut off, also said, automatically, "Sorry." When he did this I made the remark, more to myself than him, "We're so Canadian."

It's probably a myth that Canadian's are a really polite people, but we are a people that readily apologizes. I once heard two fight attendants joking as they were walking to their gate, "Let's go through Air Canada's gate and bump into people, they'll all apologize to us." And it's true that's what we do. So that was the context under which I made my remark.

But my remark had a different effect.

The man stopped.

He turned and looked at me.

"What did you say?" he said, I could tell he was emotional and I immediately felt badly, what had I said.

"I'm sorry," I said, it's a good go to position.

"No, what did you say? When we almost crashed, what did you say?"

"I said, 'We're so Canadian' we both apologized and that's what Canadians do."

It turned out that he was a recent immigrant to Canada from Syria, he was Muslim, and he had been feeling that he wasn't adapting to the Canadian culture. Our little interaction was the first time he'd been called a Canadian, spontaneously, by another person. "I thought that the only thing that people could see when they looked at me was ..." He never finished, he was overcome.

He stepped towards me to shake my hand, I shook his. I said, "Welcome, eh?"

And we both laughed until we cried.

6 comments:

Liz Miller said...

Welcome, indeed.

ABEhrhardt said...

Awww. Well, there's another one comfortable in the new land.

He's so lucky to have bumped into you.

kstableford said...

Love this, Dave.

Purpletta said...

Dave, You truly gift those around you with a piece of your heart. I am grateful for the many times your generosity of spirit, through your blog, has touched my heart. I can associate with this man's feeling of being left in tears while feeling in many ways embraced.

Ron Arnold said...


And you . . . could be his Stranger #1.

Unknown said...

This story brought me to tears, Dave. Thank you. Such a beautiful moment. How that man felt is how I felt when I spoke with you for the first time. I think, so often we feel like outsiders because that is how the world is set up, that when we meet another person commonly treated as an outsider, we are overcome with a flood of emotions and tears and shared pain and shared SOLIDARITY too. Those are the moments where I still feel the beautiful moments in life.