My son and I had a great day planned for Father's Day:
Breakfast, a movie, sitting talking, lunch, a little shopping, work out at the gym, then dinner (with my partner Joanne) and then after a day-full, a hug and kiss at our parting till later in the week. I'm really blessed he lives so closely to me... just 10 minutes.
Breakfast was nice... we beat the rush (about 20 people) by only a couple of minutes, but that little buffer was enough for us to get seated and served, with plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast before going to our very early movie.
I had a really interesting experience on the way to the movie… I was walking with my son from the car to the theatre, which is in a shopping center, when I looked down at the curb. I saw what I thought was a cover to a cell phone; upon picking it up I saw that it was actually a cellphone… an iphone, to be precise. My son and I had about 30 minutes until the movie, so we looked around for anyone who might have dropped or lost their phone, but there were only a few people around (since it was only 8:55am). I turned on the iphone and without having ever having held one before I felt guided to navigate through to the iphone’s settings to find the owner’s name and see if there was a phone number (other than the iphone’s number)so I could call the owner and let them know their iphone was safe and available to be picked up… and there was! So I called it, but only got voicemail. So I left a pretty detailed message and hung up.
Then I wondered, if I could, perhaps, without being very invasive, find someone else that might know who the owner was and get in touch with him or her (the owner’s name was Donnie). I found an entry for "Pappa" and hoped it was this person’s father. I called but got voicemail, so I hung up without leaving a message. Then I found an entry named "Mama" and dialed it. I got a live human being and quickly got to the point of my call, which was wise, because it was this person’s mother, and she said she initially felt alarmed that her daughter (now you know it was a “she”) was not on the other end of the phone. We made arrangements for her to meet my son and I after our movie, which was now about 20 minutes from starting. I felt good.
After the movie, I called the mother again, as we had agreed, and she told me that she had reached her daughter… that her daughter should actually be there to meet us. She described what her daughter would be wearing, and in only moments I identified her! She and her boyfriend were there, and were just overjoyed at our having found the phone and taking the efforts to return it to her. I thought to myself, “What else would I do?”, and then I realized that some people would see another person’s loss as their personal gain, choosing to use the phone, and perhaps the personal information contained therein, for their own selfish uses. I thanked God for a clear path on how to treat others, how to affirm our Universal connection, how to bring comfort to others, and how the act of bringing comfort actually brings me comfort!
It was a Happy Father's Day... in a great many ways!
-Peter
