Opinion/Editorial

THE PINK BUTTERFLY

Amy’s Shipping Emporium is located on Broad Street and operated by two wonderful people.  There’s Amy and there’s Alex.  Vital human beings serving an overwhelmed public at this time in our country’s history.  I went into the UPS shipping location in order to see if any Christmas packages had arrived.  There were none. I departed the store, working through the crowd lined up, socially distanced, and masked. I walked across the sidewalk to my car, parked at the curb.  A woman was getting out of her own automobile in a space right next to my own. She was obviously disabled, as she worked to get her two canes set and braced to make her way into Amy’s.  She was accompanied by a small girl, who was unloading a bunch of boxes from the back seat.  I waited patiently until they were both out of the way. The woman inched her way across the concrete sidewalk to Amy’s front door, while the girl, arms loaded up to her chin, accompanied her.

I sighed, turned back, and went to Amy’s door.  I opened it and held it for the woman.  She slowly worked her way through.  I didn’t recognize her or the young girl, as we were all wearing masks, but it didn’t seem to matter.  The woman took half a minute to get through the opening.  The young girl tried to accompany her but was carrying too many packages to make it. Alex spotted her and the situation.  He rushed through the crowd and grabbed all of the girl’s boxes before they fell to the floor.  I was about to close the door, as the woman had made it inside, but the little girl stopped me, holding out both hands and looking up into my eyes.  “You are a nice man,” she said, her voice flat and severe as if I was being chastised instead of thanked.  I nodded, not knowing what else to do or say in response.  I noted that the little girl was wearing a ‘clip’ on her coat collar.  The clip was a sort of overly large round thing with a big garish pink butterfly in its center.  She looked down at it, and then carefully unclipped the butterfly device, before closing the short distance between us. I was surprised but made no move.  She reached up and pinned the clip to the collar edge of my favorite blue pea coat, before turning to join her mom among the waiting throng of customers.  I let the door go.  As it began to close, I saw Alex look back, a smiling expression on his face.  “You do call yourself ‘Christmas Boy,’ you know,” he said.

I walked to my car, got in, and drove down Broad Street to Avant Coffee Shop to get a cup.  I ordered coffee from one of the wonderful young baristas there.

“What’s with the pin?” Andrew, the cool guy behind the counter asked.

I looked down at the pin and realized that the bright pink thing was attracting attention.  I removed it from the lip of my collar and put it in my pocket.  “I don’t know,” was all I could think to say. I took my coffee and went to sit at a table.  I inhaled the liquid’s relaxing aroma and began to think.  It was Christmas, the day only a few hours away.  It was a tough Christmas, with people not coming together physically, with masks disguising expressions and identity itself.  It was a Christmas of little financial supply and not much sympathy among those who still had jobs and money for those who didn’t.

I put my hand in my pocket and smiled.  Carefully, I pinned the butterfly back on my lapel exactly where the little girl had placed it.  I knew deep in my own heart that I did not always think of myself as a nice man, but I could not help feeling like I was one when wearing the butterfly clip the girl had put on my chest.

We are still us.  We are still here, and we are still here for each other.  The smallest of seemingly meaningless acts can have the most powerful effect if we will put them into play.  The little girl didn’t change the course of my life, but she certainly changed the direction of the path I’d been traveling prior to encountering her.   Be the little girl in someone’s life today.

Be ‘Christmas girl’ or ‘Christmas boy,’ and celebrate the fact that your own acts during this season, and afterward, have real meaning and effect.  Merry Christmas.