Last week, when I was driving home from my son’s football practice, I witnessed a fleeting momentary interaction between two strangers that for some reason has stayed with me this entire week. A father and his teenage daughter were crossing the road. The father was carrying a very full load of laundry in a basket on his shoulder. They were rushing to cross the street quickly and a sock came flying out of the basket just as they had reached the other side. The driver of the stopped car rolled down his window and shouted to the girl about the sock and she quickly came back and grabbed the lone sock and returned to her father.
I know this is one of those incidents that most people wouldn’t even think twice about, but for whatever reason this simple little action made me smile several times this week when I thought about it. Probably because I know what it’s like to have missing socks (from too many loads of laundry). When our family loses socks, however, we are able to replace our lost socks without really thinking about it. My assumption from witnessing this account was that losing a sock for this family might have meant something different. It might have meant that someone didn’t have a pair of socks to wear or that they might have to wear ones that didn’t match. Regardless, I noted the fact that this driver assured that this wasn’t the case, that one more lost sock found it’s way back to it’s owner.
Just a little action but one that was noted and witnessed by a smiling onlooker, me.
1,000 Mitzvahs 