Lessons of Gratitude I learned from my Garbage Man.

We have all heard the term garbage in garbage out (at least I hope we, have.) As a young boy my mother, would tell me she didn’t care if I grew and became a sanitation worker (garbage man,) as long as I was happy.

I hated the thought of, myself becoming a garbage man, because I hated being the one whose chore it was to take out the garbage every week from out home. The smell sometimes was terrible, especially when the neighborhood dogs, or raccoons would tear open the garbage bags and spread the garbage all over the place and I would have to clean it up.

Sometimes, the neighbor would call my mother up and claim, it was our dog that had gotten into their garbage and I would have to go over and clean up someone else’s garbage (I knew it wasn’t out dog and we were just being played by that neighbor,) or so I thought.

I did not learn until months later that, the neighbor had cancer and she would call my mother up and complaint about our dog tearing open their garbage. My mother knew this was not true about our dog and she also knew the woman had cancer and her own children would not help her, with some of the house hold chores, especially the garbage that would be spread around their property by most likely the raccoons and not our dog.

So, my mother would force me to go over and clean up the neighbor’s garbage often almost regularly at least once a month. I cussed out everyone under my breath, my mother, my father, the neighbor, her teenage children and yes, those damn raccoons.

Then one day as I was cleaning up both our own garbage and the neighbor’s, because supposedly it was our dog who had gotten into the trash again, a garbage man (the weekly collector,) came by early and he got out of his truck and started to help me, pick up the scattered garbage that was all over the neighbor’s front yard this time.

I asked him why he was helping me when he didn’t have to, and he hadn’t before. His answer came in the form of a profound statement “The same reason you don’t have to help this woman with cancer, he said."  I felt like I just got picked up by a WWE Star and slammed to the ground, before that, a major league smack down across the head too.

My mother knew along and didn’t have the heart to tell me Mrs. King had cancer and that her own kids weren’t home at the time to help her.  I also didn’t know my own mother had, just discovered her own breast cancer for the first time and that she and Mrs. King had formed a close relationship, born out of grief.

THAT GARBAGE MAN TAUGHT, ME SOMETHING I WILL NEVER EVER FORGET.  IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING IN LIFE (how you earn a wage,) BUT HOW WHAT YOU DO, HELPS OTHERS.

NEXT TIME YOU SEE YOUR GARBAGE MAN/PERSON SAY THANK YOU FOR ME TO THEM.

Special accolades go out to Brandon Steiner CEO of Steiner Sports in NYC. Brandon your story in your book, about how you reached out to a child and helped him become a child again for, just one (after he lost his father in the 911 tragedy reminded me of this life lesson,) thank you for the reminder sir.