Christ Beside Me

I was getting late for the office one morning last week.

I would always wait for a jeepney that plies the route that passes right by our office building on V. Gullas Street.

This time, the wait was taking almost half an hour.

Naturally, stress was building up inside me. Precious time was being wasted; I would have already started on some important task at the office. I tried to distract my growing impatience by checking my phone for any fresh messages when, finally, the right jeepney pulled over.

The pregnant woman tugging her tiny school girl ahead of me took forever in getting on the whirring vehicle. It seemed she forgot that it was a public utility jeepney – not her private limousine. I sensed my eyebrows folding tightly, so again I tried to distract my annoyance, this time by filling my mind with the thought of God’s all-seeing eye, and imagined that He would not have approved of my cross attitude.

The tiny girl’s oversized ID read: “Hi! I’m Britney.” No, she was not Britney Spears. But I jokingly teased her just the same, “Ah, so you are Britney Spears,” I said, smiling half-heartedly.

The jeepney began to move.  Then, after just a short distance, it halted again. I didn’t wonder, though; I thought it was probably picking up a passenger.  My attention was fixed on little Britney, who was now becoming friendly with me.

A few seconds passed and the jeepney was still not moving. I couldn’t help but check why. At a distance, a frail-looking elderly woman was waving her hand vigorously, meaning she needed a ride. An equally frail-looking man was assisting her, inch by long inch toward the waiting jeepney.

She kept waving her hand, even as she already saw that the vehicle was waiting for her. The uniformed young lady on the other side from me checked her wristwatch. She was obviously getting impatient, too. The peeved expression on the lady’s face said that her time could no longer tolerate the delay. I began to heat up again.

After an eternity, the woman was finally able to reach the boarding step of the jeepney. It took several seconds more, and some hard struggle, for her to get aboard. She settled herself on the space beside me.

She looked around at the other passengers. As she turned to me, I looked away. I was feeling really annoyed. And who would not be? Several of us who were in so much hurry were being held hostage by one who was moving in slow-motion, like a character in a romance-fantasy movie!

We were all quiet as the jeepney picked up speed. Through the side of my eyes, I observed that the woman was searching the faces of each of the other passengers, one by one, as if trying to start a conversation. But she didn’t have their attention; most were young people who had their headsets on and were apparently mentally preoccupied.

I pretended to be looking away to nowhere, like I was mentally preoccupied too. Then I felt her finger on my arm. I had to turn to her.

The smile that met my eyes was bigger than the morning sun, and as bright. Only then did I notice her generously wrinkled face. Inexplicably, compassion seized my heart. The face bore the marks of an utterly difficult life. The facial skin was so thin, like crumpled onion-skin paper.

But her eyes gleamed. It was a quality beyond the physical. Then in half-whispers, she began to bubble up. She was going to Carbon Market, to buy an apple for her grandchild. The little boy liked apples, she said. Images of my long deceased and dearly missed grandparents came rushing in my mind; in my boyhood they would have probably taken the same big effort for something too little just to give me what I liked.

The woman left home at daybreak that day, to go to a charity office for free medicines. She was recovering from beriberi. She went early so that she could return home before her little Biboy would attend his day-care class, and so he could take an apple with him.

But she took the wrong jeepney on her way back. From Lahug, she ended up in Mabolo instead of Carbon market. The one-way fare she paid for the wrong route was a deduction from her budget for her Biboy’s apples. She wanted to buy him two, but now she could only afford one.

Her third child was a concern to her. The 19-year-old girl, the boy’s mother, could not seem to get settled with any man. Biboy’s father was her first, and she was now living with her third lover. I understood the old woman’s worry.

This stranger related her whole life to me, as if we were long-time friends. Maybe we really were; she felt like that to me. Or, perhaps her raw humanity awakened mine, reminding me that ultimately we all share the same basic human nature.

I knocked on the steel hand bar of the jeepney. I was getting down ahead of the woman. As the vehicle veered to the street side, I handed out my fare and volunteered to pay hers as well. She begged for me not to, but I insisted. She held my hand on my way out, whispering her gratitude and telling me that I was a good person.

The woman haunts me until now. In silence I would ask, “God, was it You?” I know that the woman was real. But the way she disturbs my self-centeredness feels way beyond human power. I feel guilty for not recognizing Christ behind the mask as an old woman.

I doubt if I will ever have the chance again, to have Christ beside me on a ride somewhere. Me and my little faith, why do I even doubt? And why only want Christ to sit beside me on a transitory course when in fact I must let Him dwell in me forever?