By: Gabriela Yareliz
I was absolutely sure someone was sabotaging my laundry run by holding the elevator on the fourth floor. Here’s the thing— the only way to get the basement where the machines are is via elevator. There is no staircase. I patiently waited (my frustration mounting). I wondered if I was going to be able to start laundry at all. NYC traumas.
They are currently sanding and painting the elevator doors in my building so I knew what the hold up was. Or so I thought.
When the elevator opened, little Ms. H was there. Ms. H is 98 years old and lives on the third floor of my building. She was going to do laundry, too.
“Oh thank God,” Ms. H said as I stepped into the elevator with my laundry bag. “I can’t see well, and I was praying someone would come down to do laundry at the same time as me and help me put money on my card,” she said.
I smiled. We put money on her card and then she realized she left her soap upstairs. I offered her some of mine. “It’s my lucky day,” she said. “I count my blessings.”
I was touched that she thought so. But it was a great reminder that, so often, timing and intersection are not random. It is often an answer to a prayer.
“We help each other,” Ms. H said to me smiling as we waited to go back up. It was a long wait because of the sanding of the doors, but we made it to the washers and were both smiling. That was all that mattered.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 