Todays Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

Warm in Your Heart

By Gross

It was a bitterly cold Denver morning. The weather was unpredictable.

First, a warming trend gave the snow a chance to melt and run away, slipping

from sight into the storm drains or running silently along the curbs, across

side yards and under fences to the low-lying areas where it completed its

vanishing act. Then the cold returned with a vengeance, bringing yet

another

coat of the white powdered precipitation, freezing what little remained from

winter's previous blast and hiding it, an icy trap for street people.

This was a day for staying home, for having a cold and waiting for Mom

to

bring a cup of soup. It was a day for listening to the all-news radio and

imagining the possibility of being snowbound without being too

inconvenienced.

That was the way the day was supposed to be.

I had a job speaking at the Denver Convention Center to a couple

hundred

other people who, like me, were unable to have the sniffles and stay home

for

Mom to bring us soup. Instead, we gathered at the convention center, unable

to

do more about the weather than to talk about it.

I needed a battery for my wireless microphone. What a lousy time to

have

gotten lazy. . . I had failed to pack a spare. There was no choice,

really. I

needed a battery. So I headed into the wind, head bowed, collar up,

shuffling

in too-thin dress shoes.

Each step brought my thin suit pants close to my backside. The

material

was cold and reminded me that my mother would have never let me out of the

house

had she known I had dressed so foolishly.

Around the corner, I spotted a small sign announcing that a 7-Eleven

convenience store was within sight. If I walked quickly and lengthened my

stride, I could reach the front door and shelter from the brisk wind without

drawing a breath of lung-burning air. People who live in Denver like to

play

with outsiders by telling them that winter in Denver means enduring a

pleasant

kind of cold. " It's a much drier kind of cold, " report the Denver folks,

when

their relatives ask how they like life in the Mile-High city. Drier, my

foot!

It's cold enough to give the famous brass monkey reason to move. And

humidity,

or the lack of it, doesn't seem all that important when gusts of

40-mile-an-hour

Arctic reminders are blowing against your backside.

Inside the 7-Eleven were two souls. The one behind the counter wore a

name

badge saying she was a. Judging by her appearance, a probably

wished that she were home bringing hot soup and soothing words to her own

little

one. Instead, she was spending her day manning an outpost for commerce in a

nearly abandoned, downtown Denver. She would be a beacon, a refuge for the

few

who were foolish enough to be out and about on a day so cold.

The other refugee from the cold was a tall, elderly gentleman who

seemed

comfortable with his surroundings. He was in absolutely no hurry to step

back

through the front door and risk sailing through town at the mercy of the

wind

and ice-covered sidewalks. I couldn't help but think that the gentleman had

lost his mind or his way. To be out on such a day, shuffling through the

merchandise of a 7-Eleven, the man must be completely daft.

I didn't have time to be concerned with an old man who had taken leave

of

his senses. I needed a battery, and there were a couple hundred important

people who had things left to do with their lives waiting for me back at the

convention center. We had a purpose.

The old man somehow found his way to the counter ahead of me. a

smiled. He said not a single word. a picked up each of his meager

purchases and entered each amount into the cash register. The old man had

dragged himself into the Denver morning for a lousy muffin and a banana.

What a

sorry mistake that was!

For a muffin and a banana, a sane man could wait until spring and then

perhaps enjoy the opportunity to saunter the streets when they had returned

to

reasonableness. Not this guy. He had sailed his old carcass into the

morning

as if there were no tomorrow.

Perhaps there would be no tomorrow. After all, he was pretty old.

When a had figured the total, a tired, old hand fished deep into

the

trench coat pocket. " Come on, " I thought, " You may have all day, but I have

things to do! "

The fishing hand caught a change purse as old as the man himself. A

few

coins and a wrinkled dollar bill fell onto the counter. a treated

them as

though she were about to receive a treasure.

When the meager purchases had been placed into a plastic bag, something

remarkable happened. Although not a word had been spoken by her elderly

friend,

an old, tired hand slowly extended over the counter. The hand trembled,

then

steadied.

a spread the plastic handles on the bag and gently slipped them

over

his wrist. The fingers that dangled into space were gnarled and spotted

with

the marks of age.

a smiled larger.

She scooped up the other tired, old hand and in an instant, she was

holding

them both, gathered in front of her brown face.

She warmed them. Top and bottom. Then sides.

She reached and pulled the scarf that had flown nearly off his broad

but

stooped shoulders. She pulled it close around his neck. Still he said not

a

single word. He stood as if to cement the moment in his memory. It would

have

to last at least until the morrow, when he would once again shuffle through

the

cold.

a buttoned a button that had eluded the manipulation of the old

hands.

She looked him in the eye and, with a slender finger, mockingly scolded

him.

" Now, Mr. . I want you to be very careful. " She then paused

ever

so slightly for emphasis and added sincerely, " I need to see you in here

tomorrow. "

With those last words ringing in his ears, the old man had his orders.

He

hesitated, then turned, and one tired foot shuffling barely in front of the

other, he moved slowly into the bitter Denver morning.

I realized then that he had not come in search of a banana and a

muffin.

He came in to get warm. In his heart.

I said, " Wow, a! That was really some customer service. Was

that

your uncle or a neighbor or someone special? "

She was almost offended that I thought that she only gave such

wonderful

service to special people. To a, apparently, everyone is special.