Souls in Transit

** in December 2010, i met a stranger who changed my life. this is a true story and nothing in the re-telling below has been enhanced or fabricated... i was so touched by this experience that i immediately knew i wanted to write about it. i took notes almost instantly afterwards, and months later i started to to weave the story back together. this experience has met draft after draft, and about two years later, after setting it aside and coming back to it many times over and over again, i am ready to share this very personal story. my meeting with David continues to give me faith, love, inspiration, and hope when i need it most.**

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Chicago felt like it was negative thirty degrees that day. 

Ambulance sirens were blaring, trains overhead were rumbling, the blustery city wind was smacking me in the face like I’d done something very wrong, and the bus shelter looked icy and miserable. The walls were slick with frozen sheets of condensation and the small bench was covered in a thick coat of gray snow. A shockingly cold gust of wind punched my lungs as I breathed in, and as I cried out in sharp pain, I could see my shallow exhale forming pitiful halos in the bitter winter air.

Hot chocolate.

Hot chocolate was suddenly of the greatest importance.

Despite the likelihood I would miss the bus that would get me to my doctor’s appointment on time, I made the split second decision to cross the street, knowing full well that hot chocolate would soothe my tired, weary, chilled self more than being on time would.

I swiftly opened the door to Caribou and ordered a medium. It warmed my gloveless fingers and I turned the cup into makeshift mittens as I walked back to the bus stop. The shelter looked deserted and I quickly assessed that I’d most likely just missed the 156 by minutes.

My hot chocolate consoled me. I looked down at the paper cup and it spoke to me. “It’s okay, friend, I’m frothy and delicious,” it offered. I sighed for only the wind and my beverage to hear. I would just have to wait for the next bus.

I suddenly noticed an old man in the corner of the bus stop. He appeared homeless. He had a pale weathered face the color of ancient aging paper, and bulging eyes that took you in with precision. He had practically no hair, and wore a tattered hat and scarf set that was yellow and dark blue. There was something in his face that looked off, and I immediately supposed he was one of those characters you’d run into in the city who would start talking to himself out of the blue--one of those people you’d always see on buses muttering about Jesus and chocolate bars and yelling at the lady sitting across the aisle to goddamn stop staring at him when all she was probably doing was trying not to look anyway. He shifted and leaned against a metallic red walker. It was the color of a flashy red race car.

If you must use a walker, I supposed, you might as well use one with style. He caught my eye and we held a brief gaze.

“It’s cold.” The homeless man spoke.

I mustered a half nod and then looked away.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I didn’t want to answer him. Why would I tell a stranger my destination, let alone one who looked as bedraggled and crazy as the man in front of me?

“Lakeview,” I finally responded. “Where are you going?” It was almost a challenge.

“Maple,” he said simply. “Are you just off work?”

More silence.

“Yes,” I decided to answer.

He looked at me as if I was going to say more and when I did not, he looked away. I thought he would be quiet now-- I was tired and had left work early to go to the doctor. My body was sore and I was aching and the last thing I wanted was to engage in conversation with a crazy old man. The wind whipped around my face and slapped me a few more times.

“Are you married?” the homeless man asked.

I was somewhat stunned. “Married?” I made a noise that sounded halfway stuck between laughter and disgust. “No.”

There would be no silence, I realized.

“Well, how old are you?”

The man was getting personal. I didn’t feel like getting into a conversation with him about anything, let alone why I was still single, especially when we were going to be riding the same bus, but all of a sudden, he didn’t seem so crazy. There was something about him that seemed completely unthreatening. He looked a little helpless even. For a flash, I saw my grandfather in his stance and in his eyes.  And in that moment, I decided to humor him.

“Twenty-nine,” I said. My mind struck me with lightning. “Wait, I’m twenty-eight! Oh God.” It was approaching my birthday and I had already started to accept one more year.

“You’re fine,” he smiled. “You’re young. People get married later these days. Not like when I was growing up---”

I interjected. “Yeah, my grandparents got married when they were just eighteen or so…” 

“---Back then, people got married when they were eighteen,” the old man and I both said eighteen at the same time.

I smiled back at him.

“People didn’t live as long back then.”

“Well, my grandparents lived into their eighties,” I told him.

“Ahh, they were babies,” the man responded.

I focused on the icy ground, contemplating my deceased grandparents and their beautiful sixty-year marriage, unsure whether or not I should be upset that this strange man seemed to be making assumptions about them, unclear as to whether he was insulting them or simply commenting on marriage in the past.

“How old do you think I am?” he asked me.

“Oh I don’t know…”

“Come on, how old.”

I took a good look at him. He looked like he was maybe in his seventies.

“I don’t know, thirty-eight?” I answered playfully.

He rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air. “Oh, come on.” He paused for effect as if he was both very proud and very sad at the same time.

“I’m ninety-four years old.”

“Ninety-four!” I was shocked. “I never would have thought. Well, you look very good for ninety-four years old!”

The old man looked pleased with himself.

“I’m David,” he told me. ‘What’s your name?”

Normally I would have given a fake name to a stranger-- partly out of suspicion and partly as a fun game to see what name I could come up with quickly, but somehow, I was not afraid to give him my real name.

“Katherine.”

“I like to talk, you’ll talk with me?” It was both a question and a statement.

“Yes,” I smiled at him again, somewhat charmed by his oldness and his oddness.

He slowly shuffled to the bench and made his way into the seat with great effort. Just as he sat down the bus turned the corner and I immediately felt concerned he’d just exerted so much energy only to have to get up once again. “David, the bus is coming. Let me help you.”

“Oh, it’s here? Finally.”

I took David’s arm, and as the bus rolled up to the sidewalk and stopped in front of us, I stood behind him, making sure he got on okay. We took the row that faced outward and I purposely left one seat between us.

“Sit next to me so I can hear you,” David told me.

I hesitated for a split second but moved next to him anyway.

“I need you to do me a favor. Don’t let me forget this bag of medicine. I did that once before. That’s what I came down here for. I’ll ask you a few times.”

I imagined David getting home and realizing his whole afternoon had been a waste-- that he’d just thrown away precious money on pills he’d left on a lonely bus. “I won’t let you forget it. Promise.”

“Good,” David said.

I looked around. There were several people on the bus, some of them giving me funny looks, I’m sure wondering why I was speaking with this old man who looked very much at first to be something he was not. I ignored them. I imagined how lonely he must be. Ninety-four. Getting his own medicine. Astonishingly able to navigate the city by himself at his age, he was a bit of a marvel. And it seemed he just wanted someone to talk to. I had time, my doctor lived Near North and David was getting off at Maple. Maybe we would have ten, fifteen minutes on the bus together.

“What do you do,” David asked me.

Here we go. “I’m an actor.”

“An actor… It takes a lot of work and a lot of luck in your field.”

“I know.”

“There are a lot of untalented people in your field.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You need luck for money, to be at the top.”

“You sound like my mother,” I sighed.

“And without that luck, you’re never going to be making a lot of money.”

I was quiet, contemplating why I had ever chosen this career. A life of rejection and self-imposed poverty. So often it made me question everything about myself…my talent, my looks, my purpose.  So often it was so difficult.

“You know that,” he said. Again, it seemed to be both a question and a statement the way he said it.

“I know all too well, David....” I didn’t know what else to say.

David quipped in. “Do you love what you do?”

Visions of my work flashed in my eyes. The words, the emotions, the tears, the humor, the intense joy I would feel when the right human qualities would surface at just the right moment, the unexpected beauty and grief that would surprise me, the constant search for answers…There was so much uncertainty in a life on the stage, and yet there was nothing else I could ever see myself doing.

“Yes…I do. I really do,” I told him. And I meant it with all my heart.

David took me in with his huge eyes. His pale skin and large nose made his face look like an antique painting. I saw so many people in his face. People I had never met, people I had always known, people I would meet in the future. We had a powerful and silent understanding in that moment.

“I loved what I did,” he offered.

“What did you do, David?” I asked. I was truly interested in this man’s life.

“I was a liberal lawyer, graduated class of ’39 at Northwestern. And then World War II was two years later…. I’m Jewish.”

“That’s amazing, David.” I meant it.

“I still work sometimes. Corporate law.”

“Really?” I was a bit surprised, but his mind, indeed, was still very sharp.

“Yes, people still ask me for help. I love that. It’s a compliment.”

“It is definitely a compliment,” I agreed.      

“I don’t do it as much anymore. All the lawyers I help keep dying.”

I realized what an astonishing man this was. David had lived such a full life and had outlived so many. At ninety-four years of age, I wondered if he had anyone left in his world he could talk to, if he had any family or friends he could count on. We could both feel this reality sting the air.

“I would have guessed you were an actress, anyway, with your personality,” he changed the topic.

“Why is that, David?” I smiled.

“You keep doing these funny things with your mouth.”    

   

I laughed, embarrassed. “I’ll take that as a compliment?” I wondered aloud.

“Yes, it’s a compliment!” he assured me. We sat for a moment. “Do you have a boyfriend?” David asked me. He was in no way coming on to me, he really just seemed curious about my life.

I had one once, I thought to myself.

“No,” I said simply.

“If you find a doctor or a lawyer, grab him,” David advised me seriously.      

        

“Ha, now you DO sound like my mother!” I laughed.                                        

“Your mother’s got a lot of common sense.”

All of a sudden the bus lurched forward and David grabbed my hand as I moved my arm in front of him. I felt protective of him, and visions of my mother driving me in the car as a child flashed through my mind. I remembered how she would always move her right arm in front of me whenever she had suddenly pressed on the brakes, as though her arm would protect me from flying through the windshield, as though her arm had the power to protect me from traffic and bad guys and everything else in the world that could ever hurt me. Sometimes I wished I still had my mother’s arm in front of me, protecting me from the world.

David was still holding onto my hand. He looked a bit embarrassed and apologetic. “I’ve fallen before,” he explained. He still didn’t let go of my hand. And I didn’t let go of his.

“It’s okay, David,” I told him. We continued to hold hands on the 156 LaSalle bus going north. We were a strange pair, the two of us, and yet, I think we were both slightly comforted by this random act of human connection.

“You have warm hands,” he told me. “Warm hands, warm heart.” I smiled  that he had confused the proverb.

“I think that’s because I’m drinking hot chocolate!” I guessed. “Normally my hands are always cold.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“…Does it bother you?” he finally asked.

“What, that my hands are always cold?” I laughed, confused.

David looked serious. “No, that you don’t have a boyfriend…”

I looked away. I had only just met this man, had only just started to talk to him maybe fifteen minutes earlier, but in this short time, David had somehow found the two things in my life that I was most uncertain of--my career as an actress and the lack of love in my life--and had exposed them both. He had looked into my eyes and seen through my hot chocolate and my layers of winter gear and had stripped me down to the most very basic elements. And the very simple facts on this very cold and very gray winter day in Chicago were that, yes, I felt uncertain of the direction of my life and, yes, I felt very much alone. And it did bother me. Not all the time, but when it did bother me, it bothered me very much. I knew that past relationships had ended for good reasons, had ended because they were supposed to, but the truth was, it was hard to be alone in the city--hard to be alone in general--when you had at one time not been alone. It occurred to me that David was very much alone, as well.

“No, I’m doing alright.”

“It shouldn’t bother you.” He could see through me.

I turned back to him, afraid I might unravel.  “No? Why’s that, David.”  

  

His own eyes twinkled as he looked straight into mine.

“Because you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

And I could say nothing in that moment.

His words resonated within my heart. I hadn’t known why I’d met David. I had almost gotten on a different bus altogether. I had almost avoided any type of conversation with this man at all. But his warmth and strangeness, his wisdom and knowledge had all culminated in this one last exchange, in this one beautiful and simple message that seemed to calm all of my insecurities at once. We looked into each other’s eyes. I felt a calmness and an affirmation I hadn’t even known I’d been looking for.

David kissed my hand.

“This has been a very fruitful ride for me,” he beamed.

“…For me, too, David.”

“I think you’re going to be alright,” he assured me.

We started passing the streets that meant his street was coming up. I pulled on the cord for the next stop. “This is you, David.”

I helped him get up slowly. “Oh! Your medicine!” I grabbed his bag for him and hung it on one of the handles of his walker, assisting him to the front of the bus. He had told me he would remind me more than once not to forget his medicine. But he’d forgotten. I was glad I’d remembered for him.

I helped him through the opening doors onto the sidewalk. David stood outside and I stood in the doorframe, a final tableau of a meeting I would never forget.

His next words endeared him to me even more.

“I hope that I brought you good luck,” he whispered.

I took him in, this unexpected man, and let his words hold me. “Me too,” I managed to breathe. “Merry Christmas, David. Happy holidays.” The doors closed. It occurred to me as soon as I said it how silly it was of me to have wished him a “Merry Christmas.” He had told me he was Jewish earlier in our conversation. I wished I’d told him I’d been raised Jewish too. I held his image in my heart, part of me wanting to get off the bus with him. I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye. But the doors closed and the bus drove off. I looked behind me and saw David steering his race car red walker down the icy sidewalk.

I sat back down, the entire conversation replaying in my mind. It was remarkable how intimately we had spoken with each other in so short a time. How deeply he had observed my soul and how simply I had offered my soul to him to be observed. I wondered why I hadn’t asked him more questions--how I didn’t know anything about his current life, if he had someone to take care of him, if he had a daughter or a wife, a grandchild or a caretaker---if he had anyone. But even though he’d obviously enjoyed having someone to talk to, David had seemed to know right from the start that this meeting was not to be about him. Rather, he had known that this chance meeting on this chance winter afternoon had been about teaching me a lesson I desperately needed to learn. 

You never know what is going to happen tomorrow.

I thought about David and I thought about my existence and tears came to my eyes as I realized I would never forget him and the lesson he had taught me. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps this meeting had not been by chance like I’d first thought, but rather, it had always been meant to happen.

And almost as if I had been visited by an angel, the bus continued on its way north while I held close to my heart David’s beautiful belief that, yes, I was going to be alright.