Mondays are sometimes have a very blah start, and today was no exception. I got up as I normally do, got my daughters ready for school and got myself to work as per usual. It sounds pretty routine, and even if I mix it up a little and drive a different route into work, it is still fairly routine. I arrived at my desk without much commotion, and even though I had to deal with an angry parent before nine o’clock, it’s been a rather monotone start to the week. Well, I am kind of lying about the undercurrent of chaos and turmoil in my life right now, but for the purpose of this post, I am just going to talk about the rather routine start to the day/ week.
I work in an open concept office – shared open space. I like that because I would rather not be stuck in a closet-sized room, plus I have a window. I like the sunshine that is pouring out. My friend, Jairo, is like sunshine sometimes. He rushes in and out of the office. He looks after the entire Club making sure everything is working, and getting what needs to be fixed fixed. He is also a writer, and I helped him to set up his own website for his stories. Today, he came rushing in and asked me a question. It was the first moment of my day that was so out of the ordinary, I think I forgot to breathe.
“What is your cow?” he asked me. I stared at him. I didn’t have to say “huh?” it was written all over my face.
“No, let me explain, what is your cow?” he said again. English is Jairo’s second language. He speaks with a beautiful and rich Spanish accent. Luckily, I am good at translating, and I understood. He went on to tell me a popular story from his country (Columbia). There was a very poor family and the only thing that they owned was a cow. One day a man came by their house and saw them. He stopped and asked them about their life. The father said, ‘Oh we are so poor, we have nothing except for this cow.’ The family was starving, their house barely had a roof, everyone was miserable. The man looked at the family and killed the cow. Then he went on his way to the city. A couple of years later, the man happened to be travelling back the same way. He saw a beautiful house standing in the same place where he had killed the cow. He saw the father standing outside the door and stopped.
“Hey you have a beautiful house now. What happened?” the man asked. The father smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“When you killed our cow, we had no choice. We had to go out and find another way. We to work really hard to make a new life.” The father said. He shook the man’s hand and thanked him.
Jairo asked me again after telling me the story.
“What is your cow?”
Hmm – well, that’s a very good question. What is my cow???
Now my ordinary Monday has been diverted. I love that.
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