Esther.

It was almost as if there was some sort of forcefield around her. No one stood even remotely near her, even though the train was rather filled with passengers. It was almost as if people believed that if they looked away or stood far away enough, perhaps they wouldn’t have to struggle with what they saw.

We look away all the time, away from the elderly cleaning our public toilets, the frail selling tissue packets at bus-stands, the under-grads serving fat garrulous men beer at night, our parents when they look across the dinner table… We look away, to save ourselves the trouble of struggling with what we would otherwise have to. Alternatively, we look and then allow ourselves to grow numb.

I stood right next to her. It seemed right because the space was empty and sunshine filled it. I like sunshine.

She had a white hat on to hide her face with, and her hands meddled with a lilac-pink balloon which had been twisted into a fun shape. With a black marker, she drew a funny face on it, and the rubber thing became a fun toy immediately. Sticking her nifty masterpiece into the spokes of her wheelchair, she peered intently out of the train window, her nose almost touching the glass, warmed by the noonday sun. Her neck was stretched forward, like a child peering through a frosted window pane, hungry for a first-time peek at fresh snow.

I kept watching her. I was smiling at her and wanted her to see me. She didn’t.

So intent was her gaze at the window that everything else seemed to fade away. Her legs were atrophied and paralyzed, and her feet seemed to be fitted with special shoes. I wondered what her Story was.

Finally, she looked up, and I smiled at her.

All at once, her eyes, large and beautiful and deep like dark, moonlit pools, lit up like a lamp in the darkness, and they twinkled with a child-like sparkle. They were electric, almost, and for a few awkward seconds, our eyes, across three feet of space, conversed in glittering fluency. I smiled and she smiled back; I nodded, and she, too, nodded back. She wanted to speak, but we found no fitting words.

“For you,” she finally said gently.

I stretched out my hand to cup the little balloon animal she had sculpted. Her eyes twinkled like stars.

“What do you do?” I asked, “and what is your name?”

” I sell tissue paper,” she whispered humbly. “My name is Esther.”

What a beautiful name, I thought. It reminded me of the woman in the bible, who became the famous queen who saved all of her kingdom’s people.

“I see, ” I said very slowly, “I’m going to meet a friend for lunch at City Hall.” I felt obliged to share with her the little I could offer about my life, since she, too had shared hers. I had to bend low to speak with her, because her eyes were so much lower than mine, and beneath that white hat, I discovered a beautiful face, graced with wrinkles but sparkling with life.

“You like it?” she asked me eagerly. “It’s a gifting. You like it?”

“I do. I do very much. Thank you so much.”

Our exchange lasted all but 6 minutes. Three train stations later, she wheeled herself out, with people fanning out to the side like the Red Sea which Moses parted.

“God bless you,” I said.

“And God bless you, too.”

It was not so much her gift which captivated me, but her eyes- those deep and brightly lit pools of light which shone with love and speech and humility. I looked at her little balloon-gift, and thanked God for such a beautifully random blessing that lovely noonday.

Esther showed me how a lot of love put into a tiny, tiny act could be so utterly powerful.

That evening, after many years of being captured by Ed and deceived by him to give up what used to be my hobby, I made a breakthrough to cook for my family again- from scratch. A gloriously rich beef stew and grilled veggies stuffed with couscous and sprinkled with pine nuts and melted cheese turned out to be a lovely surprise. I didn’t realise how much it touched them. A random mix of ingredients thrown together by some amateur shouldn’t have had that effect- but it did. It was the mundane things like searching for the recipe, shopping for the groceries, dicing the beef and preparing the ingredients, spending hours perfecting the consistency of the stew which did.

Simple, mundane things, transformed into the greatest force, because of the love released into them. Love, which I had uncovered, discovered, unearthed for my loved ones since the Professional People helped to lock Ed up- Ed, who had made me believe I was worthy enough only to be abandoned, unworthy of love.

Mundane things, like nail-clipping for dirty little village kids, like washing a grimy floor on your hands and knees, like dicing potatoes in a particular way because you know they’ll like them.

Simple things, like a pink balloon with a funny-face, given with a smile and a sparkle of the eye.

Is this why I will always prefer handmade cards and notes over expensive gifts which try to compensate for their thoughtlessness.

Simple, mundane things.

What lovely blessings.