I was pumping up my 12 pound inflatable kayak with my nifty little foot pump. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the lady strapped the kayak down, tightening the buckles while varicose veins popped out against her sun damaged arms. I felt inexplicably silly standing there with my rubber boat slowly expanding under the patient pumping of my foot.
"How much does that weigh?" I asked. Her skin was bronzed to an unhealthy leathery tan by the sun. This was someone who was not well acquainted with Coppertone.
"28 pounds," she said.
"Wow, that's pretty amazing that you can handle that yourself."
"I brought men with me to help before," she said, "Bunch of wimps. I ended up doing it myself anyway."
She pointed to the two kayaks on the roof of my van.
"Who got those up there?"
"Oh my daughter and I, but we nearly killed ourselves doing it. It's hard with such a tall roof. That's why I use my inflatable when I go alone."
We chatted a little longer and as I carried my kayak to the lake, she called out, "Someone know you are out here?"
"Yes, thanks," I said, touched that a total stranger would care enough to be sure I had exercised proper safety caution. (which I had....but only as an afterthought.)
I had sent my announcement about my book publishing that morning to the many agents who had read it, given wonderful feedback, encouraged me, but in the end decided they couldn't take a chance on an unknown new writer. They wrote back, sounding truly delighted for me.
"You go girl!" wrote one.
"I love happy endings!" wrote another.
"Great marketing!" wrote a third.
All strangers. All in their own way cheering on a fellow co-conspirator in the mystery of life.
As I kayaked, I wondered why the lake was empty. It was hot and muggy, but it was a Saturday afternoon. I passed a few people on their docks, sitting in the shade of an umbrella. Children were jumping from the back of a boat at one dock, trying to touch an American flag fluttering from the dock as they leaped into the air.
They waved, and we all agreed it was hot hot hot.
I thought of Honeybun, our little dog and heroine of my book, as I kayaked along the shore of the silvery lake. I was a stranger when she first saw me. And she had run from others who had tried to help her. For whatever reason, she had let me approach, and tolerated a stranger's hand upon her, a stranger's offering of a drink of water on a similarly blistering hot day.
A vet who had never met me, a total stranger, offered to look over the abandoned dog for free, and split the cost of a heartworm test with me. A total stranger saw my internet posting of Honeybun and offered a list of trainers that might help me with her impossible issues. And a total stranger emailed me and said if I was willing to save the dog, she would help....for free.
We are all sojourners at one time or another, all strangers in a foreign land at some point in our life. Some of us feel like strangers no matter how long we have known those around us. But sometimes strangers make marks in our lives that even we don't recognize are lasting, with eternal repercussions. You just never know when someone aching for encouragement might cross your path, and a simple word of reassurance, of kindness, of caring might be a sip of water to a dehydrated spirit.
I love how the Bible reminds us to not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, we may be entertaining angels unawares. I am pretty sure I have been in the company of angels more times than not.
As I kayaked around the bend from the parking lot, I glanced back. The lady with the kayak now firmly tied to her car stood on the shore, watching me as I crossed to the open water.
