It's the Small Things | Our Everyday Angels

She was 95 years old that day. Dressed neatly, white hair tied back in a small bun, and reclining on her sofa, she was smiling and cheerful. Even at this age her eyesight was good, and she only needed glasses for reading. Her hearing too was almost perfect, as was her memory and presence of mind. She still did crosswords and sudoku puzzles every day and read widely. She wrote poems in her younger days and still continued to do so off and on. Mobility was her only problem. She had fallen down in the bathroom recently and had dislocated her hip, had been laid up for many months and was now unable to walk much without help.

I had gone to wish her on her birthday, and stayed on to chat with her. The first thing I asked her was the secret of her health – and at that age one is only too happy to talk to anyone who will listen.

I expected to hear of her recent illness. Her husband of over 50 years had passed away and she was now living on her own, with a woman attendant to help.

But no, she did not talk about either her health or any other problems.

Instead she said, “God has been very kind to me. He is always there whenever I need him.” And so it seemed. To make her point she told me a story from her childhood.

She was eight years old and went to a school nearby. As was usual in those days, she walked to school. The school also had a hostel for those girls who did not have parents in town, and she had become friendly with some of the girls.

One day, it was announced in the school that there was to be a concert nearby and that the girls were welcome to go to it. Sushila, for that was her name, was very keen to go and asked some of her hostel friends how they planned to go. They said that they would be taking the school bus. Sushila asked if she could come in the bus with them and was told that she could.

On the evening of the concert, she told her parents that she would be going to the concert with her hostel friends. Surprisingly, they did not ask her details about the who, where and how of this outing. Nor had she bothered to ask anyone about the location or when it would end, confident that she would be with friends who knew.

The concert was good and she became immersed in the experience. So much so that whenever a seat became vacant in front of her, she kept moving forward to better to hear and see, until she was far from where her friends were. When the concert ended, she looked around for her friends but could not see any of them, nor any others from school.

In fact, there were very few people left. Her mouth became dry, her heart was pounding and she was on the verge of tears. She had no idea where she was or how to get home from there.

This was when her guardian angel appeared. A teacher who was very stern and unfriendly, and mostly ignored her in school, saw her standing alone and looking lost. She asked her how she had come and how she was going home. She told her that she had come with the hostel girls in the bus but couldn’t see any of them now.  The teacher told her that the bus with the hostel girls had gone a long time ago. But seeing her plight, she said she would drop her home in her car. Which she did.

As they drove through the dark and quiet city, the teacher spoke gently to her for the first time, asking about her time in school, her favourite subjects. The teacher even seemed to know where she lived and drove her right to her doorstep. There, the teacher walked her to the door and made sure she was safely inside before leaving.

"You know," Sushila said to me, pausing in her story, "I never forgot that night. Not just because I was rescued, but because I learned something important. The teacher whom I thought of as cold and unfriendly had been watching over me all along. She even knew exactly where I lived, though I'd never told her! Perhaps she stayed late at the concert not for the music, but because she'd seen me there alone."

Sushila's eyes twinkled as she continued. "I think that was when I truly understood that kindness often comes from the most unexpected places. And that's been the pattern of my whole life. Whenever I've needed help most, it appeared in way I could never have predicted."

She turned back to me with those same twinkling eyes. "Even now, at 95, I'm still discovering new angels. Like you, coming to spend time with an old woman on her birthday. Who would have thought that would be exactly what I needed today?"

Pushpa Sundar is an ex-IAS officer and a writer.

We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.

And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.

Read the series here.

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