He liked to sit on a bench in the town square. Across the street was a children’s bookstore. From time-to-time, a little girl would impatiently drag her mom into the store. The little girl would always wave to the man, and he would always wave back with a smile. One day the little girl, her mother lagging behind approached the man and asked if he would like to read her new book to him. The man’s face lit up as he accepted the little girl’s request.
The man and the little girl became friends, and she looked forward to him reading to her. As the girl grew older, she would walk the few blocks from her house on her own to read with the old man. They would feed the birds together and he would regale her with stories of his own, her laughter an elixir to his soul.
The girl grew up and the visits became more infrequent as the young girl’s journey from childhood to teenager took its inevitable path.
The man was now in his seventies but still made his way most days to the bench to feed the birds and watch life in their small town go by. One day a group of high school girls walked by including the young girl who was now a teenager. One of the girls looked at the old man and whispered something to the other girls. They all laughed except the girl who years ago he read to on that bench. She did not join in the joke at the man’s expense but did not defend him either. A mixture of guilt and embarrassment flashed across her face.
Years passed and the young woman was now a mother. One day as she went into the bookstore to buy books for her children, she saw the man sitting on the bench feeding the birds. Through the years, she had often seen the man sitting at the bench but never summoned the courage to approach him. She walked towards the bench with trepidation and just a little bit of guilt.
“Do you remember me?”
The old man looked at her, studied her face for a moment and then smiled; “Why, my young reading friend!”
The man was now in his late eighties but still lucid and loquacious. The woman attempted to tell him how sorry she was for her friend’s behavior so many years ago and her lack of moral strength. The old man simply waved his arm dismissing her apology.
They spent what seemed like hours bringing each other up to date on their lives. He delighted in learning that the woman now had three children of her own and how her three-year old daughter was a voracious reader just like she was.
As the hour grew late, she asked the old man if he feared dying. He told her he had little fear of death and the way he saw it; we were all spiritual beings having a human experience and when our physical body dies, we simply return to our spiritual form.
The woman with genuine interest asked the man what the important lessons were, that he learned during his life. He told her that the only thing that really matters is love and how we treat each other. He told her that forgiveness is among the hardest of traits to master but the most important and that in the end you will not be remembered for what you accomplished but for how you made people feel.
As the sky grew dark, they hugged and said their goodbyes. Years later, long after the old man was gone, the young girl was now a grandmother. Her children had moved away, and she was a widow. She would spend her remaining days sitting on that same bench, feeding the birds, and waiting for young children to come out of the bookstore, hoping they would ask her to read to them.
