Tuesday 11 January 2011

"Ever see a blind man cross the road? Tryna make the other side."

First of all, sorry for my absence!- it's only been a week but I really had nothing much blog about so... and I also have a lot of blog reading to catch up on too so will be doing that soon! 

Anyway, something highly eventful happened to me today as I was waiting for the bus:

Tap, tap, tap. He tapped his red and white stick carefully onto the pavement, trying to figure out where the pavement ended. A bus came and a woman approached him. She put her hand on his arm so as not to startle him.

"Is it the 63* bus that you want?" She asked

"No, it's the 64*." He replied.

"OK, well this is the 63, the 64 should be coming soon."

She got onto the 63 bus herself.

Tip, tap, tip, tap. He continued to walk more cautiously now, edging nearer the bus stop. A few minutes later, another 63 bus came.

"Damn these 63 buses, they come every two minutes! Why can't the 64 be more regular?" I thought.

As if by the powers of telepathy, I saw the 64 bus at the traffic lights, waiting to turn. Alhamdulillah, I thought. I then remembered the man. The 63 bus was still at the bus stop, loading passengers. So the 64 would come behind it. He wouldn't realise that the 64 bus would be behind, and I was the only one who knew he wanted to get on the 64 bus.

I waked up to him, and said:

"Excuse me, the 64 bus is here. It's just there." I pointed. "Just walk forward a bit and it's just there. Come on, we'll miss it otherwise!" I began to walk towards the bus. As soon as the words left my mouth I felt stupid, how was he to know where to walk, he couldn't see! He took a few steps.

I went back up to him, and looked at his eyes. They were a bluey-grey infusion. Might be cataracts, I thought.

I realised the only option was for me to walk him to the bus. I held his arm "Walk with me." I said. I looked up at the bus to make sure the driver knew we wanted to get on the bus.

"I only want to go to Gregg's, you know, that one in Greendale **." He said.

When we got to the bus, he repeated the above sentence to the driver, and asked him to tell him when his stop would come. My stop was before his, so I trusted the driver would remember to tell him. As I climed up the stairs to the top deck, I suddenly felt guilty. I didn't help the man into a seat. I also wondered what the man would have done if I hadn't have helped him. It made me think that subhanallah this world is not random, it's not coincidence. God had planned for me and this man to be there at that particular time. I repeated the word subhanallah over and over in my head. I thanked Allah for my sight, and tried to imagine what life would be like without it. We take everything for granted, and this encounter reminded me to be thankful for my two eyes. Say a little prayer for your eyes.

* Not the real bus numbers
** Not the real name of the town in which I reside

I couldn't stop thinking about this song as well, and the title of this post is from this song:

4 comments:

Sara said...

Assalaam Alaikum,

That was the sweetest story, MashaAllah. May Allah (SWT) reward you for helping someone out in need. Reading it really brought a smile on my face. =)

And how true, we should always be thankful for what Allah (SWT) has given us such as beautiful eyes to see, limbs to walk with and a healthy body, Alhumdulillah.

Furree Katt said...

this was really nice!

Nas said...

Amazing story. Jazakallah for sharing.

And you're right, there are sooo many things that we take for granted, many of which are primitive things, such as movement, the ability to talk, communicate, see etc etc. I was reading a book recently and it raised this point, which I shall share insha'Allah in a future post

:)

{A Muslimahs Musings} said...

Aww mashallah such a sweet story : )