I rolled my cart of freshly washed clothes over to the wall of dryers but stood back to access the situation. Many of the top dryers were already spinning away in use, two were out of commission, and there were a few in the process of being filled. The bottom row of dryers were all available. About to resign myself to claiming two of the bottoms, a lady in the process of filling her third one on the top asked me if I wanted one.
“If that’s okay, sure,” I replied and watched as she kindly withdrew her clothes and placed them in the dryer below. The gesture quite unexpected and very kind, I told her so. She waved it away and mentioned in passing that she recognized me as she often saw me on the bus. I, in turn, confessed I had never consciously noticed her on the bus. But now that I think about, it’s likely on my after work bus ride which is often packed and at that point of my day I’m very much tuned inward, singularly focused on getting home.
The lady was accompanied by her mother, an older woman manning a couple of the other dryers, assisting her daughter wherever she could. When I heard them communicating in another language— one I didn’t recognize— their interaction made me think of my mother and how we, too, speak our language when out and about in the world.
There was love there. I heard it in the way they spoke to each other— it didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the words. There was love there. I noticed it in the way the daughter answered her mother’s questions pertaining to which dryer had my things and which had hers (the dryers shared the same coin entry but then one has to manually select the correct one). There was love there. Vividly apparent in how the daughter found her mom a stool and then playfully petted her when she sat down.
I ended up using two dryers— the freed up top one and then a bottom one close by. When the timer went off on the one with my heavier clothes, the lady was removing her clothes from a bottom one and told me I was welcome to the 9 minutes left on it. At first I declined. But when I noticed the damp of my comforter and other heavy clothing, I, once again, took her up on her kindness.
When I got ready to leave, I took the opportunity to thank her again and also mention how I enjoyed bearing witness to her interactions with her mother, as it made me think of my own mother and how much I treasured our bond. She thanked me, sharing she had left her mother at home— encouraged her to sleep in, but her mother had decided to come out anyway and help her with the laundry:) Bidding her goodbye, I told her to say hello to me next time she saw me on the bus. She laughed and said she would :)
When I got home, I sent my mother a text telling her how much I loved her.