I am not like my mother—she prayed for everything. She prayed for friends, for waiters, and for the food they brought us. For refrigerators. For roadkill.
She even prayed for parking places. When a car finally budged from its space as we circled like vultures seeking carrion, she would beam, “See? He cares!”
My prayers are more modest. I might seek divine intervention for a missing sock, a cell phone, or a shopping list gone astray in the grocery store. When I was young, I prayed for my pets—right up to the moment of death. Still, now and then, I’ve prayed for someone’s health and watched them become healthy again.
So, I was surprised to find myself—with my hand resting on the shoulder of a young man I did not know—praying aloud for him at a bus stop as passengers milled about.
I had brought my cousin to the Greyhound station so he could board a bus to take him home. We waited—pacing, standing, sitting on cold cement benches until our backsides went numb.
Two hours later, a bus finally arrived. Surely ours. But no; the driver told us my cousin’s bus had been canceled. Another one would come “in an hour or two.”
All around us, mothers changed babies’ diapers on the stone-cold benches. A grizzle-bearded gentleman used his cane to prop up his nodding head. Children overturned suitcases, which occasionally burst open in a soft explosion of clothes and toys.
As darkness approached, the replacement Greyhound bus arrived. A heavyset young man near the front of the line shuffled toward the door. The driver opened it, invited him in, and spoke with him privately. Moments later, the young man stepped back out.
After engaging him in small talk, I asked, “Why did you get on and then come right back out?”
“I was measuring,” he said plainly. “I wanted to see if I could fit in a bus seat. It’s less embarrassing to find out now than when the bus is full.”
His candor took me off guard. I searched his eyes, tucked away behind heavy cheeks.
As we talked, he began to open up. “I’ve eaten my way through my misery. My family treats me like an outcast. Eventually, I dropped out of high school. I’m barely a survivor. And that’s all I am. So, I’m leaving.”
His eyes divulged emptiness—a soul leached of hope. What remained was a broken spirit, searching for a place of healing.
When I reached for his arm, he didn’t resist, didn’t even question my intent. A tremor passed through him—and into me. What was I doing? His burden wasn’t mine. His shame, his fear—they weren’t mine to carry. And yet I couldn’t let go.
There was only one thing to do—pray.
Yet, at that moment, I shared a twinge of his fear. The bus crowd might stare. I might not fit in.
Still, I prayed.
When I opened my eyes, his face was wet with tears. He rubbed his knuckles in his eyes to clear them. Storm clouds had broken; a comforting rain had begun to fall.
And then he suddenly announced he was turning a page—away from bitterness, from anger, from self-loathing. Toward healing. Toward beginning again. After all those years, he believed that finally he, too, could be loved.
And in that moment, I learned something, too. Like my overweight friend, I needed to learn about fitting in.
Expressing love is a splurge—an extravagant act that risks embarrassment. It’s a leap off the high dive before you’re sure you can swim.
And sometimes, by taking that one courageous step, we budge both heaven and earth.
The Timberline Letter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
