Entrances and Exits

Today Carol's sister, Linda, and her husband, Jack, from Kelowna, B.C. were scheduled to arrive here at the Bayview complex. We awaited them in the downstairs lobby where I passed the time looking for something to photograph. I found a painting that provided a measure of aesthetic relief from the eyeball/sombreros mentioned in an earlier post, and some Unrolling Stones.

Then came the grand moment of arrival ...

With Jack and Linda settled into their accommodations, Carol and I left to attend our Friday night meeting. One five-minute school assignment was handled by a native of Zihuatanejo, a thirty-year-old father of a young boy. His subject was the use of "Abba" in the scriptures. Besides explaining how it is an informal designation for father, like Papa, he illustrated how it must have sounded to Jehovah, when addressed that way, by playing a brief recording he had of the first time his own baby son said "Papa." He related how happy he was to hear it.

I hadn't realized that words like abbot and abbey were actually derived from Abba. The speaker mentioned that in fact 'Pope' is derived from Papa. Referring to Matthew 23:9 where Jesus instructed not to give the title 'Father' to any man, he asked how our heavenly Father must feel to hear a designation, properly belonging to him only, attributed to men.

Following the meeting we took a bus back home. It is dark then and of course we must be careful to take one that goes to Bayview Marina. Four buses passed before ours appeared. The fifteen minute ride was uneventful until we arrived in Ixtapa. The bus made an unexpected turn and stopped. The driver began barking what I believe were commands, and people started filing off the bus. We were still a fifteen minute walk from home and I nursed the notion that none of this applied to us and soon our ride would resume.

Not understanding Spanish even when delivered serenely, I certainly could decipher nothing from the torrent of syllables discharging from this driver. Fortunately however, I can boast of having been, since early childhood, fluent in body language. Repeated frantic gestures toward the door persuaded us not only that he warmly desired us to disembark as well, but that regardless of his reasons, it was a good idea.

We now stood on the grassy median of the roadway, unable to follow the preceding passengers across due to traffic. We watched them climb aboard a waiting bus and trail off into the night.

Once across we waited for another bus to carry us home. When it arrived we got aboard and the laughing driver refused to accept our fare. He looked familiar. The bus interior looked familiar. It was the same bus and driver who had just turfed us.

Countless stories in this world remain untold and this will be one of them. Why this bus driver transformed from wild evacuation fever to laughing, welcoming good-naturedness in ten minutes will likely never be known. Unless he had noticed something rolling in the dark on the road beside him and feared it was his drive shaft.

And so it goes.