Dizzy Spell

When I was on the train about a month ago (CTA) during rush hour (the train was full: forget personal space, it didn’t exist), a woman who was standing, holding on to the railing, suddenly collapsed. Someone quickly stood up, gave her his seat, and she was finally able to regain her breath, her dazed eyes slowly coming back to lucidity. No one crowded her, but one woman knelt down in front of her, keeping her company, asking her questions, making sure she was alert. “I’m fine. Just a dizzy spell,” she kept saying. I was nearby, offered her a clementine I had in my purse. She shyly nodded yes. The woman peeled it for her, placing the pieces one at a time in her hand, and she ate slowly, letting the sugar seep into her bloodstream. All of us on the train knew what to do: don’t crowd or stare, just glance to make she she’d be OK, making sure the woman was still keeping a steady eye on her. Rows behind me someone offered his water bottle, we passed it down, she drank, finished it. Someone else asked if she wanted more water. She shook her head yes, and she drank from someone else’s bottle, thankfully. We were all going home from work, all tired, all sick to our stomachs from the push and pull and jarring breaks of the train, the smells of a thousand different perfumes, different deodorants wearing away... when she left the train she immediately sat on the bench outside, and a last man asked her if she was OK, and she said yes, she’d be fine, and we all saw that she would be. Her strength seemed to come back. I have more stories like this, some not so wonderfully extravagant with helping hearts and hands. But it’s little moments like these that I feel some kind of hope in humanity. Something like the fact that maybe we’ve all been sick with a dizzy spell before, and that no matter what, we’ll keep watch, make sure that they know that they won’t be left until they’ve come to, back out into the grind and hum of whatever it is we call life. 

P.S. Sometimes all it takes it one look of understanding. It doesn't have to be a big smile or a little one, a handshake or a hug. It doesn't have to be the feigning of a familiar face that says hello as if they know. Sometimes it's when someone looks at you with an awareness that your journey is not theirs, that it's different, that maybe there's something to be understood from one another. It's this maybe that holds the weight, asking "are you really here with me?" in a clear minded way. The answer is always safe and sound and true and never needs to be spoken. Except when it does. Then we are all able to question and advise and think together, knowing the difference between what matters... and what doesn't.