THE LITTLE SWEET THINGS
It was an ordinary day, under ordinary skies.
Pop got off from work a little early. He was walking on the overpass over the railroad tracks, and came across a few school children who were excitedly watching and waiting for the next train to come.
As the local passenger train approached, the boys waved. Arms spread as wide as can be, and with their whole bodies, they waved, hoping that the train driver might notice them. But from a distance there was no way of telling whether the driver would notice their presence or not.
Then suddenly, the loud resonance of the train’s horn washed over them. Louder than the sounds of the rumbling train itself, in a moment, a wild “train-hello” greeted them in a way that they could not miss.
The boys jumped up and down in joy. A horn, just for them!
Yes, yes! The driver had surely seen them, and had responded to them waving.
“I just thought that was such a sweet thing for the driver to do,” Pop said, as he recalled the story to me when he got home.
It’s kind of a sweet thing, too, that such a little incident had an impact on Pop, enough so that it made him want to recount the story to me, I remember thinking to myself.
More than twenty years since that ordinary day, now, this story still resonates in my heart like it was yesterday.
Then today, as I was sitting in a soba-shop having lunch with a friend, he told me this story:
My friend happened to be listening to a radio program that was broadcasting “Arigato Stories” [Thank You Stories] collected from their listeners.
A letter from a real-life train driver read like this:
“I am a driver of a passenger train here in Tokyo. Every day, it is my job to carry hundreds of people on the train. While I love my job, there are days when the pressure of responsibility of carrying so many lives weighs so heavily on my heart that it makes me want to cave in.
On such a day, I’ll see a child on the platform as I’m pulling the train in; waving at me and at the train with all his might. In a glimpse, I see wonder in his eyes, and a little sparkle of admiration transpires as he waves his little hands and arms.
I gain courage from such a moment.
It wakes me up once again, to what I do, and what I do best.
And so, like that, I get up and I drive the train again.
Arigato—Thank you for waving at me.
Maybe just another train for you, but for me, it makes all the difference.
Thank you, little one.
You are a powerful little one.”
It felt a bit strange to me—even a little foreign underneath my own skin—that I actually had never considered the train driver’s perspective before.
Arigato—I take a moment to say in my own heart to the train driver for driving safely day after day; the train we don’t even think twice about as we go to work every day.
How many unseen Arigatos must there be in the world? I reflect to myself. In all the moments, in all the perspectives that go unnoticed, unspoken.
You know, Pop? You were right.
It’s the little sweet things, that contain a seed in them. The seed of wonder, of truth, of a whole depth of experience that can hardly be told in words.
But really, how different is the little seedling from the mighty oak tree?
Yes, that’s why, it’s enough.
It’s always got to be enough, to simply collect the little sweet things in life.
And to simply share as many Arigatos as you can.
