My Can Lady

02/09/05

It had been two months that I worked in this restaurant. My work hours were pretty long about 12-14 hours a day. By the time I was done with work, I was about to ready for bed. I always felt bad to myself and hoped that, one day, I would find a better job.

It was another night that I finished work late. I noticed that I was not the only one who finished work at midnight. I saw the old Chinese lady was picking up the empty soda cans in front of the restaurant below my apartment. She was very old, fragile and sad looking. I always wondered if she had any children at all.

Life is unfair. On the top of the society, we have some people who can burn up thousand of dollars just for clothes. But at the bottom, we have someone who cannot even afford a hot meal.

Like this Chinese old lady, to survive, she had to wait until the restaurant closed around midnight and start collecting those empty cans. She would be lucky if she had 200 cans that were worth 10 dollars a night.

The picture of the old lady was waiting in the brutal winter and
snow storm is still in my memory.

It had been a month that I collected the empty cans from my restaurant and took them with me in the subway. People in the subway looked
at me like I was a homeless with a big
back of empty can, but I did not care. I tried to get back before she left so that I could give those cans to her. Even though I didn’t understand a word she said, I could tell how much she appreciated my small help.

In fact, I should be the one who thank her. Her life shrank my own problems. Her life made me look at my life in different angles. Her life was a story of a real struggling woman who did not wait for anyone’s help but tried to stand on her own.

I am not working in the restaurant anymore but I still see her from time to time. This time, I do not need to collect those empty cans for her anymore. I just give her some money instead.

The more I give, the richer I become. We do not have to be a millionaire to start giving. We just need to share our fortune to someone who is less fortunate than us. We are always rich if we look into someone’s life like my can lady.

 

Tae (Kriengsak Athikomvittaya)