An Unexpected Mitzvah

As I get older, I increasingly appreciate the idea that on occasion I can be the inadvertent vehicle through which someone receives a blessing or has a need met.  Makes me feel like I am giving a little back to the universe that has provided for me so abundantly, I think.  A karma thing more than a religious one.

Thing Two had a soccer game this afternoon.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day in a summer and fall that have been overly cursed with rain in these parts, and it occurred to me that I should probably bring the dog along and walk her at the park where the game was being held while the boys were warming up.  I loaded her and her standard array of dog supplies into the back of my SUV alongside Thing Two’s soccer paraphernalia when we left the house.

Because she happened to be with me, I had a half-empty liter bottle of water (untouched by human or dog lips; I pour from it into her portable bowl when she gets thirsty) in the car fifty feet from the field when the woman next to me on the sideline started getting a migraine and needed water with which to take her medicine.  I was the only person on the sideline who had any.  By the time the game ended, her vision had cleared and she was feeling much better.

I didn’t do anything special.  I just happened to have water with me when she needed it, but it was a small thing that made a big difference to her.  My contribution to the forces of good in the universe for the day.