Scenes from the Parking Lot

I was sipping my coffee and reading the paper in my favorite coffee shop not long ago. It was a Chicago style spring day...gray, ominous skies, and windy, really, really windy.

Looking out the window can be somewhat entertaining, even if it is at someone else’s expense. Watching the effort people were putting into opening their car doors against the wind. Watching them grab in a panic as their door blew open violently with the wind. Hat grabbing, dress flattening, coat buttoning, and body leaning all were strategies employed to fight against mother nature.

I spotted a young mom maneuvering carefully across the lot pushing a two-child stroller. She approached her car and you could sense her strategizing in her mind how she was going to execute her next move. She had to get one child out of the stroller and place them in the car seat, leaving the other in the stroller besieged by the wind. She finished that task and then took her second child out of the stroller and that’s when the challenge set in. Her stroller went blowing across the parking lot like a rocket blasting off. She gave it a curious and somewhat panicked look. Now she was in a real dilemma. Would she dare leave her two kids in the car alone while she chased after her stroller? The stroller was already a good distance from her car. How far would it continue to blow?

My instinct was to get up and help, but my mind was playing some tapes from the past which made me hesitate. Within the last couple of years I had tried to help people in distress and it had backfired on me. There was a young boy in a Walmart rest room who seemed disoriented and somewhat frightened because he couldn’t figure out how to get out the exit door. I showed him the way and opened the door for him. His mother was waiting outside and noticed the bewildered look on his face. Her automatic conclusion was that I had done something untoward to her son. She began to pepper him with questions about whether I had touched him or done something to him. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I told her what had happened, but she encouraged me to leave, and she wasn’t polite about it.

I had stopped to help a young girl whose car had stalled alongside the road. When I approached she jumped in her car and locked the door. She yelled through the window that her dad was coming.

Our society has evolved into a place where it is difficult to help anyone anymore. “Stranger Danger” has instilled fear in all of us to the point where everyone is viewed as a threat regardless of how well intentioned they might be.

So, do I run out to the parking lot and offer to help, or don’t I? It seems odd that I would even have to think about it, but given my past experiences, I actually hesitate. I decide to run out of the coffee shop and go directly to the stroller. The young mom looks on still not knowing what to do. She sees me headed to her stroller and remains by her car. As I push the stroller toward her car, fighting against the wind, I can see a sense of relief on her face. When I arrive at the car, she gushes with appreciation, so much so I find it embarrassing. It wasn’t that big of a deal. This is what we are supposed to be about as people, “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us”, loving our neighbors with random acts of kindness. Corralling a runaway stroller is not quite the magnitude of intervening when someone is being physically assaulted.

         

I did not walk away basking in my chivalry. I was wondering how it has come to this, where we are afraid to approach strangers, help children, offer assistance, or even be friendly, without wondering whether or not they have evil intentions.

         

Today it is becoming more difficult to love others as we love ourselves.


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