What goes around...

A 10 year old boy goes into cardiac arrest at a little league baseball game and is saved when a nurse comes down from the stands and administers CPR. Seven years later, the boy is working as a dishwasher in a diner when a patron begins to choke. He rushes over and performs the Heimlich maneuver and saves the patron’s life. After everything calms down, the boy’s mother recognizes the patron as the life-saving nurse. Call it what you will – Divine Intervention, Kismet, Fate…but that is a serious case of “what goes around comes around”.

I have my own similar stories of karma, and I suppose most other people do as well. Here is one of my favorites.

It was pre-dawn on a Christmas morning. My plans called for me to make the drive from Tampa to my Grandmother’s house in south Georgia for the family gathering. As I drove onto the interstate, my groggy mind screamed at the prospect of driving for several hours on Christmas morning. At least I should have smooth sailing and very little traffic on I-75.

I had driven less than two miles on I-4 (I was not even at the I-75 interchange yet) when the car in the emergency lane caught my eye. The blinking lights illuminated the young man standing beside the car. The debate in my mind was fast and furious.

“Don’t stop.”

“They need help.”

“You have a long ways to go.”

“It’s the Christian thing to do.”

“This will only delay you more.”

“What if you were stranded?”

In truth, it took about three seconds for me to slow down and pull over, coming to a stop behind the car. A young girl got out of the passenger side of the car. The teenagers began babbling quickly. They were high school sweethearts. Her family had moved over the summer to Daytona. He had borrowed his mother’s car to drive all night and pick her up to spend Christmas with his family. They were only a few miles from making it when they had run out of gas. He had no cash but did have his mom’s ATM card for emergencies.

I told him to hop in and we would go get some gas. He told the girl to remain in the car and bundle up (yes it even gets a bit chilly in Tampa at times). We drove to the first exit – no gas. We continued to the second exit where there was a gas station but no ATM to be found. Back then, there were no pumps where you could pay with a card. We drove on for a couple of exits and finally found a bank with an ATM machine.

The boy pulled out some money, we bought a gas can and some gas at the open station we had found, and we soon arrived back at the stranded car. I cautioned the boy to save a few drops of gas to prime the carburetor. As the engine roared to life finally, the couple’s faces lit up. The boy tried to give me money for my time. I politely refused every offer, saying that what goes around comes around, and that one day I would be repaid in kind.

The sun had risen as I resumed my journey. I had lost almost an hour and might not make it in time for lunch but I was going to try. I guided the Chrysler north and settled in for a long trip.

Somewhere along the way, in that stretch of north Florida where you can drive for a couple of miles between exits, I suffered a blowout on one of my tires. I pulled over and found that I had forgotten to replace the spare tire I had removed the week before when I was making room for my bicycle in the trunk.

Great.

Now here I was, stuck in the middle of pretty much nowhere and it was nearing dinnertime on Christmas day. I hiked to the next exit, looking for an open service station. The only thing at the exit was a house with a fruit stand out front. Of course they were not open, but I knocked on the front door of the house, asking to use the phone. They knew of an open station about 3 miles up the interstate.

When the man answered the phone, he was just about to sit down to Christmas dinner with his family. He said he would come get me with his tow truck and could eat later. Sure enough, he showed up less than ten minutes later.

After towing me to his station, we looked around for a tire. Of course the only one in stock that would fit on my large Chrysler was very expensive. I explained I did not have that kind of money. The man took one look at me, and sold me the spare from his personal vehicle for ten dollars. He would not even charge me for the towing. In half an hour, I was back on the road. I did make it to my Grandmother’s and we all enjoyed a great day together as a family.

So, if anyone ever asks me about karma, or if they ever start talking about serendipity, I smile and remember the joy in the face of those two teenagers that early Christmas morning, and then I think of the gratitude I felt when a complete stranger left his Christmas dinner table to give me a free tow and sell me his own tire.