Happenstance can be a wonderful thing. We don’t give it much thought until it dances into our lives, triggering events that would not have occurred without it.
When I took chocolate lab Aquinnah (aka Quinn) out for his first walk of the day yesterday, it was 3 degrees above zero. Quinn did not take care of business in his usual spot two blocks up the hill, so when we got back down to the house, we kept walking instead of going inside. I figured we’d head around the corner and onto a side street, to see if Quinn would get “on task” there.
That’s when I spotted him.
A man whom I vaguely recognized as living in the neighborhood was on his knees on the icy sidewalk, just a few yards ahead of me. He had a cane in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. He was wearing a coat, but he had no hat and no gloves.
He saw me before I saw him, and although he was watching me intently, he said nothing.
“Are you all right?” I shouted. It seems like a pretty dumb question in hindsight - an elderly man kneeling on a patch of ice at 5:30 in the morning when the mercury is hovering near zero is not all right. I guess I was thinking that maybe he was catching his breath before getting up.
The man continued to stare at me, but there was no response.
“Are you all right?” I shouted again.
“Not really.”
As we got closer, it was obvious that the man could not get up on his own. But Quinn, who wanted nothing to do with this unusual turn of events, started growling. I told the man I would have to bring Quinn home, but I'd be right back. When I returned a couple of minutes later, the man was just as I had left him.
“I broke my back 20 years ago,” he said, apparently by way of explaining why he couldn't pull himself up. But he wasn’t bleeding and he had no visible injuries. With my help, he very slowly got to his feet.
“Can you walk me to my door?” he asked, pointing to a nearby apartment.
“Of course,” I said. Holding my hand and his cane for support, he made it to his front door, where he thanked me profusely. I offered to call an ambulance, but he declined. His shopping bag was empty, so I assumed he had been heading to the convenience store when he fell.
“All this for some milk to put into my coffee,” he said meekly.
If Quinn had followed his usual routine, we would have gone back into the house without ever seeing this man. We would not have heard him either, because he did not cry out for help. No doubt a passing motorist would have spotted him eventually, but there’s virtually no traffic - vehicular or pedestrian - on our street that early in the morning.
It could have been a very long wait.
When I took chocolate lab Aquinnah (aka Quinn) out for his first walk of the day yesterday, it was 3 degrees above zero. Quinn did not take care of business in his usual spot two blocks up the hill, so when we got back down to the house, we kept walking instead of going inside. I figured we’d head around the corner and onto a side street, to see if Quinn would get “on task” there.
That’s when I spotted him.
A man whom I vaguely recognized as living in the neighborhood was on his knees on the icy sidewalk, just a few yards ahead of me. He had a cane in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. He was wearing a coat, but he had no hat and no gloves.
He saw me before I saw him, and although he was watching me intently, he said nothing.
“Are you all right?” I shouted. It seems like a pretty dumb question in hindsight - an elderly man kneeling on a patch of ice at 5:30 in the morning when the mercury is hovering near zero is not all right. I guess I was thinking that maybe he was catching his breath before getting up.
The man continued to stare at me, but there was no response.
“Are you all right?” I shouted again.
“Not really.”
As we got closer, it was obvious that the man could not get up on his own. But Quinn, who wanted nothing to do with this unusual turn of events, started growling. I told the man I would have to bring Quinn home, but I'd be right back. When I returned a couple of minutes later, the man was just as I had left him.
“I broke my back 20 years ago,” he said, apparently by way of explaining why he couldn't pull himself up. But he wasn’t bleeding and he had no visible injuries. With my help, he very slowly got to his feet.
“Can you walk me to my door?” he asked, pointing to a nearby apartment.
“Of course,” I said. Holding my hand and his cane for support, he made it to his front door, where he thanked me profusely. I offered to call an ambulance, but he declined. His shopping bag was empty, so I assumed he had been heading to the convenience store when he fell.
“All this for some milk to put into my coffee,” he said meekly.
If Quinn had followed his usual routine, we would have gone back into the house without ever seeing this man. We would not have heard him either, because he did not cry out for help. No doubt a passing motorist would have spotted him eventually, but there’s virtually no traffic - vehicular or pedestrian - on our street that early in the morning.
It could have been a very long wait.
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