When Sheldon, driving the car,
turned to me as he parked and said,
I will open the door for you,
he must have sensed the no
rising in me because then he said,
Please. So I sat there, wrestling
my resistance to receiving help,
and once again I felt inside me
the stubborn two-year-old girl
who told her mom, Do it self.
But by the time the door opened,
the smile on this fifty-six-year-old
woman’s face was real, lit up from within
like a green light on a busy strip,
radiant with an honest relief
that in this often cruel and careless world,
someone said through action,
it’s my pleasure to be kind to you.
Hours later, I still feel it, the glow.