Christmas Misdirected

Earlier in the week on my way to the gym I came across an elderly lady who looked kind of lost.

Do you need any help?, I got off my bike also noticing her untied shoelace.

Are you from here?, she asked, and then explained, I am only visiting.  Her accent, even thicker than mine made that quite obvious.

Since I never know how to answer that question, where am I from, I asked her another.  

What do you need?

She started digging through her purse and eventually retrieved a piece of paper with the address and the name of the subdivision she was after.

She was as some would say, ‘in the ball park’, in the general vicinity of her desired destination – but when I heard the name I exclaimed,

Oh, you need to turn around and go the OPPOSITE way! You are supposed to go SOUTH, NOT NORTH on this road. 

I was very emphatic.  

It’s rather far… I looked at her – she seemed in relatively good shape, but she was in her seventies or perhaps even eighties and her shoelace was still untied. I bent down and tied the knot, then put my hands on her shoulders and gently turned her so she was now facing south.

You have to go THAT WAY, past the gas station and past the light - it should be right there on your LEFT when you get to the second light.

The woman thanked me profusely, so I hopped on the bike, pedaling on with gusto, feeling pretty good about myself. When I got to the second light and her presumed destination my heart dropped into my tennis shoes.  

It was the wrong neighborhood!

All that feel-good drained out of me in an instant...

I meant well.

I was trying to help. 

I was convinced I was right.  

I do know the area, maybe not in details but definitely in generalities…

But, none of that mattered.

I pointed the poor old lady with a foreign accent in the wrong direction.

I thought I was going to throw up.

Somehow through the fog of swirling options and earnest prayers, something else slowly begun to come into focus... another incident involving a group of foreigners on a very long journey who also needed directions…