Eye Contact

It was another typical wet day in Vancouver. On the bus the air was filled with moisture from both outside and in. Despite being rush hour, the back of the bus was still quite empty. I guess it's because people are always trying to avoid being squished together during the bumpy ride typical of this route.

There was a few empty seats, I chose the one dead center at the last row. One of the first I noticed was that people on my left row perpendicular to me had their either had their eyes shut or looked the other away. I looked to my right and saw this elderly gentleman.

It was quite obvious that he was not your conventional indifferent commuter. I could tell that he suffered from mild Parkinson's disease. His head and hand shakes slightly. He was trying to make eye contacts with everybody, but nobody seem to have acknowledge him. He raised his hand just slightly for a hello gesture, still nobody responded. They all looked away. He scanned the rows then looked at me....

Somehow, I felt unstirred by the eye contact. He had such kind eyes, his eyebrows relaxed when our eyes met. Like always, I couldn't hide the smile in my eyes, then he raised his hand to greet. So did I with a cracked open smile and I raised my hand and blurted out loud "Hi!" Then I saw the young man sitting next to him bowed his head as if he's about to go into hibernation. They must've thought this man was out of his mind.

I do not know if I felt disgusted by people's indifference, but I felt the urge to accompany this elderly man for as long as I could. For the 15 mins on the bus we exchanged winks, hails, thumb-ups, nods and smiles. I didn't care what other people might think. When it was towards his stop, he carefully packed his gloves and hats into a plastic bag. The bag tumbled to the side with the added weight as the bus took another bumpy turn. He then carefully uprighted the bag so it wouldn't be in anybody's way. He did so with such care that I felt ashamed that the thought of him "missing a few marbles" came across my mind.

He anticipated for his stop. Yet, it was my stop that came first. I pulled out my strap from the shoulder pack then I looked at him. I looked into his eyes and gave him a sincere nod, and he returned my nod with a faint smile on his cheek.
Words are meaningless. For the whole bus ride, the only word between our exchange was my reflex "Hi!", yet I felt so deeply connected with him.

It was love and it reaches beyond my prejudice.