At 6:20am I started walking over the Memorial Bridge, about half the distance of the bridge ahead of me I saw this mountain of black garbage bags being pushed on a grocery cart. The bags were so high and full that I couldn’t see the cart at all. There had to have been at least a dozen of the largest bags available. It was even difficult to see the man pushing this mountain toward West Springfield. He was in the road; cars would have to get into the middle lane to go around him. Every few yards I’d see him peek around this slow moving massive pile in effort to redirect the cart toward the side of the road. He would also stop to wipe his head with a yellow hand towel, the only bright spot in this visual experience. After making it around the rotary, I thought he was going to continue up Memorial Drive; he turned on to Main Street. Straining to push this load, he made it up a place where he could sit. It was at this point that I caught up with him as he wiped the sweat from his body. I commented on how much work pushing that load was and he told me that he had had to change his clothes twice at this point and was going to need to again. I agreed with him and as I passed him he said, “Have a good day.” I returned the same comment.
As I continued down Main Street I began to reflect on his request that I have a good day. Regardless of what my day holds, it will never be like his. I will never have to strain pushing a cart of empty cans and bottles to be redeemed in order to get my basic needs met that day. It was early morning when I met him and he had to have been up since sunrise working toward the redemption of his load. This simple conversation brought to me the realization of how much I am blessed as well as how grateful I need to be regardless of what fills my day. May we all “Have a good day!”
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