I love my work as do soooo many of the fine people that are my colleagues. Driving is my profession of choice for this season of life. Having spent years in NPO’s and corporations, with their stresses, peculiarities and politics, makes working with kids in the school district that much more fun and rewarding. And when a guy gets my age, he has a lot to offer of life experience to help young people who want to listen. Sometimes a few words of encouragement or simply a smile of kindness can make a huge difference in a student’s day. As I serve them, that is a part of my job. And here is my mantra.
An education begins and ends, every day, for many students, with a ride on a school bus.
The ride can be a positive and transformational experience for the student and the driver. There are also opportunities to build little bridges of kindness along the way.
Little Bridges
Is there a bridge that you have crossed recently? It carried you from one place, across an impasse, to the other side, right? Of course. There are many bridges in my memory. One bridge I stumbled on was deep in the Pennsylvania woods, on a childhood trek. I was hunting and gathering Mandrake Fruit (Mayapples) for making a lovely, tangy, golden Marmalade.
This small leaf-covered bridge looked to be at least a hundred years old perhaps two. The hand cut cobblestones were tightly fitted together to form pillars and allowed a small brook to pass underneath. It solidly supported a single lane of multi-colored flat, stone pavement across its top, with a small wall on either side. It was only wide enough for a horse and wagon, small truck or car to cross its gentle arch to the other side.
I sat down on the bridge and set down my full bag of fragrant, bright yellow, May Apples. I rested in the shaded, quiet coolness of the small valley. My eyes gazed upwards into the canopy of maples and birch trees while my fingertips touched the green mossy stone at my sides and explored its rough fissures and time worn textures. In one crack there was a smooth-ish, silvered looking disc that caught my eye. Prying it loose yielded a treasure! It was a Buffalo Nickle, evidence that another human, perhaps a child was sitting, running or counting their now lost coins in the same spot where I relaxed so many decades later.
This little bridge was telling me it’s secrets, it’s history, revealed, in minute clues that fired my imagination with scenarios of past pilgrims forgotten days and nights crossing this bridge.
Was the bridge a regular gathering place? Families, civil war soldiers, laughing children, passionate lovers, weary workmen, farmers and friends crossed it regularly in years gone by I suppose.
Were they on their way to war, or a farmer’s field to harvest, or talking while lockstep, settling a quarrel or making a plan for summer fun on the last day of school? All this and more could have taken place here. Who’s hands constructed it? Did it have a name?
This brawny little bridge that performed its essential service for so many, has long since fallen to sleep. The new creation of roads and rails between the many surrounding farms and villages put it into retirement. But once it was a well-travelled pathway over the creek, serving a traveler’s needs and intentions.
In life there are many little bridges I’ve found along the way. I’ve even learned to enjoy building them now. Unlike the one from my childhood, these bridges reach into the emotions, minds and hearts of people, often strangers, often on random occasions. Once built, they help a person to cross the impasse of unknown relational waters, in a safe and graceful way. These little bridges intersect the void of aloneness and isolation making a way for the willing to go back and forth communicating and hopefully being encouraged. The little bridge of kindness offered, may be small, but it holds a lot of relational weight. A bridge can be a healer or encourager; even a possible lifesaver! Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to release my high school students from my bus at their stop. It’s a routine exercise for me to give a farewell and wish my passengers a good evening over the PA. But on this day, I said, “And if you are not someone’s hopes and dreams right now, someday you WILL be?” I can’t explain why those words came to mind…they were just there…and I used them.
The students exited one by one. But, to my surprise, the last young person to exit was a smiling high-school girl who paused and said in an appreciative way, “Thank you Mr. Bus Driver, I really needed to hear that today.” I pushed back a couple of old guy tears and smiled saying to her, “Aww, thank you.”
It was a tiny, magic moment of understanding that two humans on earth shared. It encouraged and smoothed a step or two on the emotional path of life. A little bridge was built, made with healing words and crossed over, very likely, just once; but always, I think, to be remembered. Little bridges of kindness can reach to another at just the time they are most needed. I think little bridges are important far beyond my limited knowledge of the encounter.
I’ve used small gifts, little acts of kindness, friendly words, smiles (Isn’t a smile so nice to receive?) impromptu conversation starters (Hey did you see that rainbow yesterday?) and a hundred other gestures to build little bridges. A favorite of mine is to ask the name of a nurse, waitperson, delivery man or woman or whomever is helping me at the time, and then thank them personally by name.
Bridge building ideas are a kind of the construction material used to build a bridge where none was before. The possibilities for building little bridges to the hearts of others are limitless and the opportunities worthwhile. By building little bridges we can make this often-lonely world just a little bit more peaceful of a place to be humans together.
