The Benefactors
Daniel and I spent a few minutes looking in and around my car searching for his cell phone. Even with the two of us scouring high and low, we were unsuccessful at spotting it. Our joint failure ended with Daniel making the pronouncement that he would drive for the next hour and a half to go back to the place he last remembered seeing it. Steel Canyon, a deep mountain canyon with a river running through it.
He decided to jump into his truck and drive immediately, to race with the sun so he could get down the steep winding road before the sun blushed no more. Steel Canyon Road was ever more difficult to navigate in the dark and he wanted the natural light so he could search along the dirt-river-bottom-road, where he had earlier leaped from my car in an effort to escape the potential sting of a huge red hornet. The road I was taking was safer; a wide and smooth interstate freeway, and thinking it wouldn’t take me long to complete my drive was both, right and wrong.
It was right because it only took about ten minutes before taking the final turn toward my driveway. I was wrong, because as I took that last turn, at a very slow speed to navigate the abruptly changing elevation, I watched as the sleek metal and glass silhouette of Daniel’s cell phone drifted down the windshield until it rested in the wiper crevasse. I stopped dumbfounded; eyes wide and mouth agape.
I couldn’t call Daniel! After all, I was in possession of his phone. So, I drove back to his hotel, went to the front desk concierge, and asked her to give it to Daniel upon his return. He called me about three hours later.
After rehearsing “the sliding incident,” and apologizing for not being able to reach him before he drove all the way back to Steel Canyon, we laughed together before Daniel verbalized his distinctive character.
“It was important for me to go. There was a family stuck on the side on the canyon road that needed my help!”
That was two years ago, before Daniel married Donita, and he texted me with a renewed invitation.
“We’ve been wanting to give a restaurant a try,” Daniel’s message said, causing me to read with a smile.
I smiled again as I read the address. It was just the sort of place Daniel and Donita Nelson would choose, an out-of-the-way joint in the middle of nowhere. And, I laughed as the warm memory of the Steel Canyon adventure with lunch in an historic café rebounded in my mind.
We were the exclusive patrons of the Wildflower Café upon our arrival. We listened to our server recite the day’s menu and placed our order before Donita began another tale as a tantalizing appetizer.
“We always seem to have people who need help come into our path,” she began.
Daniel and Donita then painted a verbal picture of them traversing a lonely country road where they ‘happened” upon a young man who had crashed on his bicycle. Donita, a nurse, knew how to treat him, but didn’t have her medical bag. As they were wondering what to do, a man suddenly appeared, who happened to have an EMT medical kit, containing just want Donita needed to treat the young man’s injuries. Which she happily did.
I was enraptured by this new paralleled story and wondered what description perfectly equals the continually compassionate Daniel and Donita.
“The Benefactors!”
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I’m Lynn Butterfield, Real Estate & Lifestyle Expert and Television Host for American Dream TV in Northwest Arkansas. I’ve helped hundreds of Buyers and Sellers, as a real estate agent and Associate Broker with Coldwell Banker, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve what I call Realesation™. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.
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