Laundry Love

It was a 5:15 am call for a ride that had me headed to the local laundromat this morning. As I drove in that direction I got a text message saying, “I have some laundry, so I need some trunk space”

I smiled to myself as I thought about the acreage of space in the back of my KIA Sorrento. When I arrived I found a diminutive African american woman dressed in a long coat and a babushka on her head. She had a gentle demeanor as she thanked me for coming to get her and then thanked me again for my service to the country as she noted my veteran’s cap and US Navy emblem on my jacket.

I needed the acreage as she began wheeling carts of laundry bags out of the laundromat and loading them in the car. Likely a dozen or more BIG bags of clothing!!! I inquired as to whether this was all her laundry. She laughed and said “No!, I just have this little bag”. I discovered that the rest of the laundry belonged to her son!

This sweet mother had arrived at the laundromat at 9 pm last night and worked all night until this morning to do her son’s laundry! I expressed my hope that she would be able to get some sleep now but she replied that she had to go to work in an hour, and that she had caught a short nap in the laundromat while waiting on the dryers. When I said that I hoped her son would give her some money for doing his laundry she chuckled and said rather wistfully, “He’s just a boy…a child.”

Reading between the lines, the whole thing made me rather sad. I wondered how one accumulates that much dirty laundry and then allows his elderly working mother to stay up all night, napping in the laundromat at 3 am, doing his laundry.

In the course of our conversation she discovered that I was a pastor. As she pressed a few dollars into my hands she said quietly, “Thank you again for serving our country and thank you too for serving the Lord. We need more of that in the world today!”

You are very welcome, dear lady. It is my privilege and honor!