Kindness at the Supermart

As promised to my Carmelite aunt, I pray the rosary every night. I pray it on one of the rosaries I made, where I have a bead for the Our Father and another one for the Glory Be. Between those two beads is a rose for the Fatima prayer. After the Fatima prayer I pray: “Please, Jesus, send us happiness and good luck. Send my husband Loy the most happiness by giving him whatever he may want. Send all our children and grandchildren happiness and good luck too. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

My twisted ankle has been slowly but steadily getting better. But whenever I go anywhere I bring a cane to support me. I learned that a cane helps in getting in and especially out of low cars. At the supermarket I put my cane in the cart and use the cart as my cane. It works, only you have to walk slowly and carefully or the cart might run away if you inadvertently push it too much. These are the little lessons learned from my twisted ankle.

Every night since then I go to bed with an old ice bag loaded with water and frozen all day. I stack two pillows vertically at the foot of the bed, put a hand towel and wrap the ice bag. That means the foot I press against it doesn’t get too chilled. If I want it colder, I remove the towel but sometimes that feels like I put my foot in the freezer and froze it. That also hurts. Anyway, finding the right temperature and the right angle is tedious but worthwhile. When I wake up at night I can limp less painfully. The ice packs help minimize the pain.

I really don’t know whether removing pain is best handled with the cold or with warmth. Our cleaning lady advised me to take a glass bottle, fill it with hot water and roll my injured foot up and down on top of it. I didn’t dare try it because I could see myself filling the glass bottle with hot water than dropping and breaking it because of the heat. Of course I had a similar experience with the frozen ice pack except it’s made of waterproof fabric and if you drop it – as I have – it doesn’t break. So I stayed with the safer option.

When I went to the supermarket, I sat down at the checkout counter for seniors.  There was quite a line. A lady younger than me was seated and she told me to go to the end of the line that strangely enough sort of curved. “Can I just park my cart here and wait? I have a swollen foot and it seems inconvenient to go to the end of the line. I’ll just wait for my turn,” I said.

She looked at my foot and told me to sit down. “Everything will be all right,” she said. She asked me if I treated it with tuba – she pronounced it like “toobah,” gentler than tuba, the coconut alcoholic beverage. I must have given her a blank look. She told me, “The ordinary tuba tree. You get the leaves, heat them for a while and place them on your foot. They will help.”

“I see,” I said hesitantly. I didn’t even know what a tuba tree was.

“It’s the tree you see outside. A regular tree,” she said.

We got interrupted as the line moved and the person before her, who owned the two overflowing grocery carts, went ahead to check out. We sat chatting quietly together. Her turn came. As she almost finished checking out she moved my cart up.

Another young lady arrived with an older lady. The first lady I was talking to told her I had a swollen foot. She volunteered to help me. She emptied my cart even if I told her I could do it.  “No,” she said, “you are hurt. I can do it for you.”

“What is your name?” I asked her.

“Sandy Campos,” she said.

“I’m a Sunday columnist in The Philippine STAR,” I said. “I will write about the help you and the lady who just left gave me. You don’t know how touched I am. I will write about this beautiful experience. I am so grateful for the kindness both of you have shown.”

I looked for the other lady to get her name but she had left already. I couldn’t find her anymore but I thank her from the bottom of my heart nonetheless. I hope she reads this column too. This is the biggest lesson I learned.

How kind total strangers can be! I never thought I would experience these gestures. I am so grateful to God for answering my prayers on happiness and good luck. This is the best luck I have had so far! I am genuinely profoundly grateful!

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