A Lesson In Value

It was the sight of her home that stopped me from my hurried routine. I couldn’t imagine the structure surviving the monsoon season or providing any relief from the thick sweltering heat of an Indian summer. It had only three walls and a flimsy thatched roof, and it reminded me of the dioramas we used to have to make in elementary school, one side cut off of a shoebox to see the story inside. This story, however, seemed incomplete, as all that contained was a small elderly woman and a dirty grey blanket, filled with holes and frayed at the edges. I watched her pick it up and stroll to the corner, dipping the blanket into a murky puddle of water collecting beside the curb.

It was no more depressing than the faces of the women who handed me their babies in the street and silently pressed their hands to their mouths asking for food or the men who crawled alongside the dogs in the park having lost the use of their legs. I felt the same amount of injustice and guilt for everything I had as any other time I had encountered poverty, and yet there was something about this particular woman that touched me deeply, that made me pause, that changed everything.

My first thought was that I wanted to save this woman from her life. I wanted to hug her, to hold her in my arms and tell her everything would be alright, and mean it. I wanted to give her all of the money in my bank account, and the very shoes upon my feet, and be able to, somehow, allow her to share in every wonderful experience I had been privileged enough to know.

I crossed the street, removed the few hundred rupees I had from my pocket, and held them out before her. She looked up and met my gaze. We stared at one another for a moment before she shook her head from side to side, said “nay,” and returned to her work. “No,” I said, “take it.” Again, she held up her hand and declined, not in a sad or angry way, but like a dinner guest turning down a second helping of dessert. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” her expression suggested.

I stood there for a moment feeling helpless and confused, and it was only then that I noticed how delicately her fingers rubbed the blanket in the muck of the public water, how tenderly, how lovingly. What material thing had I ever loved with such fervor? What work had I ever done that had brought me such pure and simple joy? How would I possibly ever understand the value of anything, unless it was everything?

And while my first thought was that I wanted to save this woman from her life, my second thought was, who would save me from mine? Who would teach me to sit all day and observe the world, to listen to my breath move in and out as it declares my existence, to know that this was enough? Who would teach me to savor the sweetness of food upon my tongue, to appreciate the comfort of my shoes in each step, to revel in the singularly significant success of surviving? Who would teach me to recognize the accomplishment of closing my eyes at night having lived another day? What wisdom had my affluence cost me? What knowledge? What understanding?

Slowly I am learning to greet the morning sun as it rises each morning, as it brings light where once there was darkness, as it lays warmth upon my greedy skin. Slowly I am learning to accept the invitation of the rain as it washes the slate clean, softens the hard earth, clears the streets of people and fills them with it’s own unique symphony of sound. Slowly I am learning to treasure the silver of the moonlight reflecting on the quiet pond, the gold of the sunflowers turning their eager faces to the sky. Slowly I am learning that wealth is a state of mind, and that knowing this is a luxury. The value of anything, of everything, is subjective, and so to become rich in this world is as simple as perceiving the gift of existence as priceless. To become successful is as simple as cherishing this perception. To live a worthy life is as simple as loving.

She lifted her head to once again meet my gaze, and all I could think to offer her in that moment was a smile, which she returned graciously. And so I left her there to tend to her happiness, as I walked on into the world, in my comfortable shoes, determined to save the most precious of all possessions -- my one and only life.