Monday, Monday

Monday, although it was a suuuuper long day, turned out to be pretty great. Work went well even though I started my day with three 5th grade classes (I find 5th graders toughest to deal with as a lot of them have that middle school attitude already). I was in a groove with my kids and we had a lot of fun. I ended the day wearing a tiara and a feather boa and goofing around with five year olds. It doesn’t really get much better than that. I had a meeting after work, but even that was fine. And it took up the time between work and the basketball game. No, I do not make a habit of voluntarily attending basketball games of any sort. This wasn’t exactly voluntary. Several weeks ago the mom of one of my students asked if I would coach the girl scout troop on the National Anthem as they were slated to sing at the basketball game. I figured I’d take a few recesses to do it and everyone would be happy. Then I realized that I really needed to be at the game…getting 23 fourth grade girls to do anything in the same direction is kind of like herding cats. They certainly weren’t going to be able to direct themselves. So there I was. And it went really, really well. The girls did a fantastic job singing, the parents loved it, and I scored some parent brownie/general good mojo points.

OH.

But that wasn’t the best part of my Monday.

Monday a good friend of mine got divorced. (Wait, that’s not the best part either.) Yes, I realize divorce is a process. I’ve even done it myownself (just once, and that was enough). But Monday her divorce was finalized. She decided she’d go to work in the afternoon (personally I went out for lunch, got a massage, and then went out for dinner, but that’s just me), so I suggested we meet for lunch. So there we were at Panera. On the way over to pick up our food, I noticed a man in a wheelchair trying to get some coffee for himself. Besides not being able to walk, he was also all twisty. So not only was he not able to reach the top of the coffee thinger, he was having a difficult time getting the lid off his coffee cup. I asked if I could help him…he said he just wanted some coffee. So I got his coffee for him, cream (skim milk, actually), and sugar. He was beyond grateful.

And I’m not doing a very good job telling this story. I took two minutes that I wasn’t going to spend doing anything else besides standing around and helped a stranger do something he couldn’t do for himself, but really I was the one who benefited. I was blessed by taking time to help someone else. And I think we’d all be better off if we just took a few seconds to not worry about ourselves so much, not to mention pay attention to other people. God puts people in the right place at the right time. It’s up to us to do the right thing when we realize where we are.

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