- TNP Nation
- Yamantau/The Black Cathedral
- Discord
- merchantofmercy
The old man and his skis.
Back about 2010, maybe 2011, I went for a stroll around my hometown with the girl I was dating at the time. We paused under the bridge to toss some rocks through the ice on the river and chat for a while, but this isnt about her. While we were doing what teenagers do under bridges, an elderly man on a pair of wooden skis came down the trail, pushing himself along the trail with the weathered wooden poles to match. Biggest smile I've ever seen on a human being in my entire life as he pushed himself along, pretending he was on some alpine run while he ran through the motions of ducking through the trees, making sharp turns, you name it. He paused to chat to us for a moment, even though we were strangers aside from seeing him at the Living Water church when he could make it.
He was overjoyed, he had found the skis and the poles at the hospital auxiliary thrift store in town for five dollars, which, for him, wasnt exactly chicken scratch from what I knew of him. I didnt know his name, or what he did before, or anything to terribly personal. I did know he lived in a large house across from the church, which he had lived in for many years according to the pastor. He had been cheated out of his pension and had no retirement savings, so he lived on social assistance, most of which went to paying the property tax on his home. He had very little, often relying on the daily soup kitchen in the church for food. Yet here he was, in his bright blue parka and his matching toque, happy as could be on his 5 dollar skis. After a while, he left, and I returned back to my lady friend. I never saw him again. He passed away a week later in his home, but his smiling face never left me.
His big smile as he rounded the corner on his skis never left me, and it took a while for me to really understand why. It was because this old man, on his worn out skis, happy even though his life was quite dark, had found something small to brighten his life, even just a little. A man I never spoke to except for 15 minutes taught me that you can always find something that makes the dark times better, that you need to appreciate the small things.
10 years later, I still think of his smile peeking through his bushy grey and white beard as he pushed off again down the trail, and it grounds me again, reminds me to appreciate the little things.
Back about 2010, maybe 2011, I went for a stroll around my hometown with the girl I was dating at the time. We paused under the bridge to toss some rocks through the ice on the river and chat for a while, but this isnt about her. While we were doing what teenagers do under bridges, an elderly man on a pair of wooden skis came down the trail, pushing himself along the trail with the weathered wooden poles to match. Biggest smile I've ever seen on a human being in my entire life as he pushed himself along, pretending he was on some alpine run while he ran through the motions of ducking through the trees, making sharp turns, you name it. He paused to chat to us for a moment, even though we were strangers aside from seeing him at the Living Water church when he could make it.
He was overjoyed, he had found the skis and the poles at the hospital auxiliary thrift store in town for five dollars, which, for him, wasnt exactly chicken scratch from what I knew of him. I didnt know his name, or what he did before, or anything to terribly personal. I did know he lived in a large house across from the church, which he had lived in for many years according to the pastor. He had been cheated out of his pension and had no retirement savings, so he lived on social assistance, most of which went to paying the property tax on his home. He had very little, often relying on the daily soup kitchen in the church for food. Yet here he was, in his bright blue parka and his matching toque, happy as could be on his 5 dollar skis. After a while, he left, and I returned back to my lady friend. I never saw him again. He passed away a week later in his home, but his smiling face never left me.
His big smile as he rounded the corner on his skis never left me, and it took a while for me to really understand why. It was because this old man, on his worn out skis, happy even though his life was quite dark, had found something small to brighten his life, even just a little. A man I never spoke to except for 15 minutes taught me that you can always find something that makes the dark times better, that you need to appreciate the small things.
10 years later, I still think of his smile peeking through his bushy grey and white beard as he pushed off again down the trail, and it grounds me again, reminds me to appreciate the little things.
