The tale of two buckets

There is a park just steps away from the office downtown Toronto where I work. It’s one of those parks that literally always seems alive when I find my spot to sit and watch or listen to music for a bit. All walks of life come through this park; dog owners and cyclists easily negotiate passed each other and the sparrows and pigeons seem to be desensitized to the daily pedestrian traffic. You can easily tell who lives locally and is on a leisure walk and those that are quickly trying to grab some food from their favourite shawarma shop on their lunch.  

One day an older gentleman approached me while sitting on the bench taking in that days park activities, he made sure to make eye contact with me and his body language was telling me he wanted to take the vacant portion on the bench. I smiled quickly to let him know that his company was welcome and went back to observing the park as the subway below rumbled my under my feet.

“Beautiful day” the friendly stranger said with a strong gravelly voice. He was taking his jacket off to put it behind him as if planning to be there awhile, this is when I noticed his Canadian Armed Forces tattoo on his forearm. All of his worn clothes seemed to have the same brownish green colour palette, which made sense to me after noticing he is a war vet who served our country.

Not knowing how this man was going to leave an impression with me yet I simply responded with: “It is. I like to come here to sit and watch”

He only responded with a smile. One of those smiles where you could immediately tell he was kind, a smile that brought out his well-earned laugh lines and crow’s feet that began at end of his brows. His eyes looked worldly and deep, I could tell that this is someone who has seen things I haven’t.

Our following conversation is what inspired me to write these words you are reading now, so much so that I feel compelled to share this with the world and would be selfish of me to keep it as my own or tell it as my own. As you read on you will clearly understand why I am giving this story away for you to share, because this unlikely stranger has touched my life when I was not expecting it.

So my new bench companion posed a question to me. 

“If I tell you a story and you feel it’s worthy enough, would you give me two dollars for it?”

I gave him a confused look.

“There are so many people around here that just panhandle or beg people passing by for change, but nobody wants to just give money away especially to those who refuse to work for it.”

Before letting me respond he continued “I am just looking to get a coffee but only have my words to give you in exchange for your two dollars” Just that statement alone moved me.

“You got yourself a deal.” I forced out, fighting for a balance of emotion in my response.  

He took a long moment as he starred out to the middle of the park and lit a cigarette with matches, and finally started to speak after he seemed to mentally select one of the many stories I am sure this man can tell. (I’ve done my best to recollect it).

This is his story:

On my journey in life I've found that I was carrying two buckets.

I found it difficult and hard to balance my daily life because the first one was empty and the other was heavy and full. The empty bucket represented things I had to offer other people, enlightenment and joy, the other was filled with fear, resentments and amends I needed to make for horrible things I had done (either from dismissive behaviour or intentionally). The weight of this second bucket became unbearable and balance in my life ceased to exist because all my energy went into managing it and zero focus on my empty bucket - this was the very opposite of what I wanted.

Determined fill my empty bucket, it took time and learning to realize my moments of happiness, joy and enlightenment came like drops of water and they were slowly filling my empty bucket. Each drop was different and felt amazing to experience these moments along the way.

Today I am grateful that I had to grow and earn these moments and as my bucket slowly filled I noticed it didn't come with the weight and burden that my other bucket did – even though it was filling up it was light as a feather. Now that this bucket was running out of room I worried I wasn’t going to experience more of these joyful moments, I had to make a choice soon. Either allow my moments of happiness to become only memories or make room for new moments of joy and happiness. Not wanting live life without any more of these joyful moments I have learned to give it away as I went. Share with others who need it even if I don’t know them or they don’t know they need it.

It took a long time to learn when I am helping others I am helping myself.

“What about the bucket that was weighing you down?” I had to interject. This man had me fascinated within two minutes of telling this story, I had so many other questions I wanted to ask him.

My burden bucket was filled with little things like marbles each one labelled with things in my life I’ve held onto for years, either things I was resentful about or needed to own up to.

Everyone can carry around a marble or two because individually they seem harmless, meaningless and "what's one more?”. However, I had 100's of these marbles that slowly piled up and become draining as I tirelessly dragged them around with me on my travels.

It was almost like people could hear me coming like a ghost in the night with my burdens in tow.

But as I pushed through I noticed that every morning I'd get up and look at my inventory there was a handful of marbles missing. Making my outlook on that day more bearable, slowly started to change my negative drone attitude into a more hopeful outlook for that day but more importantly a desire to want to go live again.

At the end of each day, I was able to take on problems I was afraid to face. I was slowly releasing resentments I've been dragging around for years and learned how to make amends that I needed to make to others; I noticed each day a few more of those marbles were gone. The weight between the two buckets started to balance out.

As I look around today I can see who’s carrying one bucket with them, their bucket of enlightened water ready to give it away to anyone that comes along and is thirsty for this different drink.....and magically it stays full as they pour it out to others. I can also see others that are struggling with the imbalance of joy and burden in their lives too, so every now and then I share some joy with others to help add something into their lesser bucket and hopefully they can continue their journey with a little more balance than before they met me.

Sure I still have a couple marbles on me at times but no one hears me coming anymore because I get to walk this earth gracefully again......I get to experience true freedom.

He stopped talking, I said nothing. He’s entire story he took only a few moments to share with me, I needed more time than that to let it sink in.

He finally broke the silence “Do you think that is worth two dollars?” in a sincere humble tone.

I reached in my wallet and I had a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill. I offered both to him and he refused, saying that he only needed two dollars.

“I don’t have any change. So I’ll make you a counter offer” I responded back.

“How about you take this money and share a few more stories with me next time we see each other in the park?” he smiled and accepted the offer. I knew deep down this interaction was worth more than the money we were talking about, and there was no debt to be settled here because he enriched my life that day. This man poured some joy into my ‘lesser bucket’.

After we parted ways I almost ran back to my keyboard to start writing this so not to forget his words but also allow his story to reach others. My only regret is I forgot to thank him for his service to our country, but I’ll save that for the next time I get to share a bench with him.

Ryan Kerr

Ryan is also a fundraiser for Renascent Foundation www.renascent.ca

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