A Warm Fuzzy Moment For You

Just wanted to share with you a little thought today, it’s a treasured one that I sometimes take out of the memory box in my mind and I never fail to recall it with a smile.

Some years ago I was living and working in the centre of Sydney. I took a bus daily to work, and would spend most mornings sitting in silence cursing the public transport system. This particular morning was worse than usual. It was a Monday for a start, and it was raining heavily. It was a cold dismal day, the seats were wet, and workers were unhappily filing onto the bus after a weekend off, grimly ignoring each other, sitting with glazed expressions on faces.

I'm afraid I was one of them.

I don’t think one person wanted to be on that bus, on that day, facing the dreary weather and the start of another dreary week.

As the bus began to get crowded, rude messages were muttered under breaths and rude looks given as wet bags brushed past people. You could feel it in the air, that trapped feeling of being somewhere you didn't want to be. We all in turn stared blankly out the windows as the rain came down.

Then we stopped for a new passenger. I craned my neck up to see who the hold up was and why the big delay in getting us moving again. A downes syndrome girl had gotten onto our bus, and her mum was nervously trying to explain to the bus driver where she was too get off at and that someone would be waiting for her at the other end of her ride.

The girls face was so different to ours. She was so excited you could see, to be on this bus ride by herself. Her face was optimistic and hopeful, joyful.... so different to the expressions we all wore. There were no seats left by then, so she stood alone near the front luggage area, smiling around. Most ignored her, but I watched fascinated.

Waving her arm around indicating the streets outside, and with a big smile she announced to the bus in general that everything was pretty now, it was wet, see how it shines?

Likes fans uniting with a Mexican wave, smiles and warmth seemed to flow around our bus. We looked again, but this time with her eyes. Where we had seen greyness, she was seeing glitter. She kept pointint it out to us. The shiny trees, the shiny cars and shiny road. Pretty soon our bus was full of shiny happy people too, as we got caught up in watching her delight at something so simple. You could almost feel the mood lift as we all became a little less cynical about things for just a little while.

I think sometimes life just sends you little moments like that to surprise you. A little warm fuzzy for you to tuck away and take out again when needed.

The memory of her and the happiness she brought is as vivid in my mind as the day it happened. That simple enjoyment and the reaction it caused in the bus, lifting and lightning our mood. I don’t know who or where she is, but I hope she is out there, continuing to be the sunshine of someones life, and still seeing the glitter through the grey.