An umbrella from the storm of life

I took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked to my parents car. We had moved my stuff into my dorm and all we needed to do was say our goodbyes. The quad area was crazy, parents and kids were coming from all directions, pushing and pulling trollies. I was saying goodbye to my parents for my first extended time away from them in my life. My parents were sad and they were saying goodbye to their youngest child, but were still excited for me.

Before we parted, my dad reached underneath his car seat and pulled out an umbrella. “Here, take this, you might need it.” My dad was the practical sort and wasn’t the most thoughtful person, so for him to think about something I might need, was surprising.

The umbrella was used, he had it in his car for a while, but he wanted to leave me with something. I remember laughing about the oddity of it — an umbrella of all things — but we said our goodbyes and that was it.

There when I needed it

Two weeks into the semester, I walked back from class in the rain. It was a horrible crappy day. When I got back to the dorm, I shook off the umbrella, grateful that my father had thought of me and that I had it in my backpack. Before I made it to my room, a guy from my floor stopped me in a hurry and asked if he could borrow it.

My classes were done for the day. I figured why not. “Sure, take it, just make sure to bring it back.” Of course, the guy never returned it. When I asked about it a week later, he told me he had lost it and started teasing me in front of a bunch of other guys on the dorm floor. “C’mon, you’re gonna give me a hard time about that crappy old thing, give me a break.”

It’s the thought that counts

The umbrella cost only a few bucks to replace, but the experience taught me a valuable lesson about my own values and the values of others. When I grew up, my friends looked and acted a lot like me. We had a lot of the same interests and education. When I went to college, I saw for the first time that not everyone thought the same or had the same basic values as me.

Like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I just assumed that since I would leave others’ things in the same shape that I had borrowed them, others would return the favor. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. It was a minor thing, but I learned quickly thanks to that old umbrella that life isn’t always fair and some people just aren’t nice.

Images by Pixabay.