Flower Lady
This afternoon I went down to the old market square to buy some grilled chicken to eat for supper tonight. Often in the summer old folks will come with a couple folding chairs to sit at the edge of the market and sell flowers and sometimes vegetables from their home gardens.
I'm probably reading too much in to things but seeing them always sort of depresses me. All I can think is that they're struggling to make ends meet and so they sell what they can to be able to pay for food and utilities for another month. I could be completely wrong though. Maybe they sell their stuff to take a nicer vacation or just because it's something to do and they like to socialize with other folks.
Still today there was an elderly lady sitting with her flowers in a bucket of water and she looked miserable. I think the sun was getting to her. It wasn't particularly hot today but when the sun was out it was pretty strong and she looked like she was getting overheated.
So I bought the rest of her flowers. She had four bouquets left and I took them all so she could get out of the sun and go home. I'd like to say I was feeling generous and all that but I think I did it for selfish reasons. I could not stand to see her sitting in the sun like that and I just knew it would eat at me the rest of the day if I passed her buy.
My MIL liked the flowers though. I walked over to her apartment (she lives on the other side of the market square) and gave her two of the bouquets. Didn't tell her why. Just told her I got a good deal on them.
Labels: daily
posted by Dixie at 11:07 PM
10Comments:
I'm glad you didn't tell her why. The best things people do are the things they do and don't brag about.
And I appreciate you sharing the story with us, that's not bragging at all. I know how you feel. I often wonder about the lives of others, which I'll admit I didn't do so much when I was younger.
Yeah, I worried all day one day about a puppy I saw sitting outside on a miserably cold, wet morning. I thought, "How could they leave that poor puppy outside all night when it's so cold!?!" It gnawed at me and gnawed at me and I even thought kind of seriously about going back to get it, poor baby.
Then it finally occurred to me that the leaving the puppy out all night part was something I totally made up in my own mind. That puppy might have JUST been let outside because it ASKED to go out and NEEDED to go. And that is perfectly legitimate. So I stopped worrying.
But you! You're just a nice a person and that's all there is to it.
There's an elderly man of at least 85, more like 95, who keeps a tiny garden just in back of my house. Sometimes I'll see him down there tending the veggies. His hands shake badly and he can barely get around. It used to make me sad that he might be forced to grow part of his own food since pension checks are being pared down to the bone. Then this past couple weeks I saw something that helped to change my mind.
Instead of using store bought poles for support for the vines he swept around the garden border and recycled broken pine branches. He also has a totally homemade compost heap for fertilizer. Upon further inspection I found nothing man-made interrupting the flow of the land. Then it hit me this is not someone to be pitied. This is a shrewd individual who knows what he's doing, a survivalist who'd be able to take care of himself if the luxuries I take for granted every day were suddenly taken away.
Yes, he may be dealing with inflation along with the rest of us, but unlike a good part of us he seems to know how to handle it. I like the thought of that. I was so inspired by it I'm putting my own balcony garden up next year.
But yes, you are very nice.
Lisa
The story was delightful.
Never question why such simple things just "need" to be done... just do them.
that was very nice of you to do that.
It's nice that you did a good deed AND got some pretty flowers out of it. :)
Thanks, y'all. You're awfully good to me.
That story reminded me of something we saw in Cuba. An elderly man with a bicycle pull a small trailor with a bb-q. He set up at the side of the road and was selling cooked meat. We bought some although we were never going to eat it, only because the average Cuban only has about 5 US dollars a day income a month. I suspect your flower lady is probably needing extra money to heat her house this coming winter...ciao
That was very sweet of you. Good Karma! made me want to cry thinking of her. We will all be old one day.
What a nice gesture. I always try to by something from vendors, especially old ladies. They get to me. And they are not begging, they are selling something--a big difference. And what you bought was something that made someone else feel good. Bravo all around.
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