It was an ordinary winter morning, and I was driving my daughter Noam to school in the pouring rain. Traffic was slow, and I was making a right turn easing my way into a long line of crawling cars that, in the usual Israeli fashion, were not very accomodating. I was looking back and then to the front and then back again, working my way in. And then... Boom, My blood froze in my veins. As I looked back to the front, there he was, an old man wearing a broad hat with water running all around its edges like a halo in the heavy rain. I jumped on the breaks. The car, barely moving to begin with, came to a complete stop, touching, not touching the old man. He put his arms on the hood of the car, his eyes coming up to meet mine, giving me a long worn-out look. And then, very slowly, still upright, literally in slow motion, he went down disappearing behind the front of the car.
The whole scene was so out of this world that I remember jumping out of the car not knowing what to expect and if there was really someone out there, or it was all a creature of my imagination. Sure enough, there he was, lying on the wet road with the hat still on him. I helped him up and walked him to a bench nearby. He seemed a bit shaken but generally OK. He was mumbling something like, "go, I am OK, go…." A messenger boy on a scooter appeared as if out of nowhere and started urging me, "go, he is OK, better for you, just go." And the old man added, "look at the traffic jam you are causing," and then… lightning struck, and the rain intensified. I had to make a decision.
A million things rushed through my head. I was living abroad at the time with no local driver's license, the car was a company car, and the whole insurance situation was vague. The road was full of stranded, loud, and angry drivers. Noam was late for school, the old man was OK and told me to go, my alter ego dressed as a messenger boy told me to go, and the whole world and his wife were waiting for me.
If the future is the endless dynamic field spreading to the horizon ahead of us, and the past is the long-drawn-out frozen expanse behind us, the link connecting the two is the ring of the present. The ring is where the future is being processed, then stored in the past for posterity. The future summons realty to our door, and we make decisions. When we act on those decisions, they are pushed through the ring and become our past. The sum of all decisions made from the day we entered this world defines who we are. The sum of all decisions we will make in the future will define who we are going to be. We decide what passes through the ring. Each one of us - the lord of his own ring. I have been pushing this idea to the kids forever. Now sitting next to me, Noam was paying close attention, watching me and my ring in action.
I did not go. I parked the car, gave the old man my name and phone number, and walked him to an infirmary down the road to be examined.
After that, life went on as it always does but somewhere in the back of my head; I was waiting... Waiting for a call from the son of.. attorney of.. someone who could not resist the temptation for some easy money. A week passed, and nothing. Two weeks and still nothing. And then, on a Friday afternoon, I get a call from an unidentified number. I usually don't answer these, but something told me this time I should. I picked up the phone with my stomach-turning. On the other side of the line, I heard a voice of a young woman. She identified herself as the daughter of the old man asking if I remember the incident. "Yes," I answered, sitting down, anticipating what's about to come. And then she told me she thought a text message would suffice. Still, her dad being the old fashion soul that he is, insisted upon her making this call in person to thank me for the way I treated her dad that rainy morning, and... (he insisted) not to forget to pass me his warm wishes.
There was no hell to pay this time, but regardless of what transpired after that winter morning; the decision I made there standing in the rain (I was explaining to Noam) was made by the man I wanted to be, and by making it, I got a few inches closer to being that man. Once processed through the ring, it becomes a part of my past, then part of me... and come hell or high water; it can not be taken away.
Comments