Sharing an Umbrella

Today on the way home after a coaching session, I was waiting at a traffic crossing for a ride from a friend whom I was meeting for lunch.

It was a wet, cold day, with rain falling in sheets and people rushing off to lunch or from lunch. This is the kind of downpour that makes you wish you were at home, tucked in bed, lost in a book and nursing a piping hot coffee.

Lost in my thoughts, my reverie was interrupted by kind looking gentleman who stopped in front of me before he crossed the street to get back to his office. I sense a little hesitation as he opened his umbrella and offered me shelter to the other side of the road.

This is the first time someone offered to share his umbrella with me, and in the past, caught in similar downpours I have bemoaned the fact that people do longer care about others, and the empathy and depth of our human connection seems lost. And the truth is, we all had space under our large umbrellas for another umbrella-less soul.

And this one simple gesture absolutely warmed my heart. If I wanted a sign, this was it.

A thought came to me; we don't really need the propaganda that our government is famous for, keep Singapore clean and green, the Kindness movement, so on and so forth, all we need is a little love from our own heart, the desire to share just a little with the nameless others in our little island. If it was common practice to share our umbrella with others every time it rained, just for that brief moment, Singapore would become a much kinder and more gracious city with each downpour.

Imagine that. And it's just one small gesture.

Whoever you are, kind gentleman, who works somewhere at Singtel in Somerset, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I don't now who you are, but you have made my day.

And oh, I stand corrected, Chivalry is not dead here.

   "A little fall of rain
            Will make the flowers
                          grow"
                                   - Les Misérable