Helen Consaley

A few months ago, my wife, Helen, went grocery shopping at our local suburban shopping center. Typical in our neighborhood, the grocery store is located in a large center with many, many stores and thousand of parking spaces. After going up and down all the aisles, she proceeded to the check out with a cart loaded with our normal supplies. Upon getting in line, she noticed that she was behind a small, frail old lady with only a handful of items to check out. When it was time for this woman to check out and pay for her groceries, Helen overheard this lady say to the checkout clerk, “I’m not sure I have enough money to pay for all of this, so I may need to put something back.” Helen, without saying a word, thought to herself, there’s no way I’m going to let that happen, so if this poor old woman is short money, I’ll step in and pay the difference. Luckily, the lady did have enough money to pay for her relatively small amount of goods, but Helen noticed that she was putting her filled grocery bags into a small, two-wheeled, wire, pull-behind shopping cart. This seemed odd to Helen, because she wondered where this woman could have been going with this cart, but thought that maybe she was taking her items out to her car, which is another concern altogether. So, after Helen got through the checkout with her purchases, she walked out to her car and began loading all her items into the back of her SUV. She was concerned about this little old lady, and began looking around the parking lot for her. Finally Helen spotted her way across the giant parking lot. It became obvious to Helen that this woman wasn’t heading to her car, but she was going to be walking to her destination. Helen then proceeded over to where she saw this lady. As she got closer, Helen noticed that this lady was stopped along her walk and was picking weeds out of one of the shopping center parking lot flower beds. Helen got close and said, “Excuse me, but could I give you a ride?”. This shopping center is located on a very busy four-lane highway with no provisions for pedestrian traffic at all. This roadway is not safe for anyone to walk down, let alone an old woman pulling a loaded shopping cart! The woman at first refused, saying I’m sure you’re too busy, but Helen insisted and got out to help her load her purchases into the car. “Are you going home?”, Helen asked. When the woman said “yes”, Helen asked where she lived and if she walked home before. The woman answered that she has done it many times and it takes her most all day. Helen found out her name is Eleanor, and she lives about two miles away. It turns out that Eleanor not only walks down this four-lane highway, but must cross this busy road and walk down another very busy street to get home. As they drove to Eleanor’s house, they began chatting. Eleanor was very thankful and exclaimed that “this trip out of your way must be costing a fortune, with the price of gas and all!”. When Eleanor asked Helen her name, she said that she’ll remember her name because that was the name of her mother. She mentioned that she has no family at all and has been living alone for many years. They pulled into Eleanor’s driveway and up to a very small, modest home. A cat was sitting in the window, waiting for Eleanor to return. After Helen helped Eleanor get her provisions into her home, the two women exchanged phone numbers. Helen asked Eleanor to please call her whenever she needed to go grocery shopping or run errands. After a few weeks, Helen heard nothing from Eleanor and became concerned about her well-being. So, Helen took some homemade soup and stew over to Eleanor. When Eleanor answered the door, she was surprised to see Helen, but was very grateful for the food. Upon returning home, I was told that we may have a new guest at our Thanksgiving table. After getting over my surprise, I said, “What a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving!”