One Love, one year later

Yesterday my friend Liz and I were continuing our quest for furniture.  We stopped in Grand Case to take a few pictures.  We were told there were a few consignment type stores in Hope Estates and were on our way there.  We stopped at a small grocery store after leaving Grand Case and Liz ran in to get us some water.  Outside the grocery were a group of Rastafarians doing what Rastafarians do, smoking and spreading the message of love and hope between themselves. I heard one of them say, “You have to live in the positive, without that, you have nothing.”  I felt as though God was directly speaking to me in that message, as this furniture seeking thing has been frustrating.  So I said to him out the window, “I love your message!  It is so true.”  I then had a brief conversation with them about love and positive energy.  It was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

So Liz comes out with the waters and oh no!!  Our battery is dead 😳. Without missing a beat one of the guys jumps down and says, “Open your hood, I can help.”  So the one guy starts working on the battery with the “expert” advice of the 5 others, lol.  Liz and I look at each other, we had no idea if this dude actually knew what he was doing!  So he’s doing all kinds of things to the battery and its cables and Liz says, “This isn’t going to blow up my car is it?”  He’d bang on it for a minute then say, “Try to start it.”  Nothing would happen.  One of the guys laughed and said, “No, he’s a former mechanic, it’s all good!” So while this is going on one of the other guys goes and gets another battery.  After tinkering with it for several minutes they get the second battery and literally, holding it in place connecting the positive and negative terminals say, “Ok, try now.”  It started right up!  No jumper cables needed, who knew??

We were so appreciative, we offered to pay them.  I held out the money and one of the dudes (who we later found out was the trouble maker of the group) grabbed the money and was not going to give it to the guy who had actually done the work.  One of the other guys grabbed his hand, shoved it back in the car and said, “What is wrong with you man?  You don’t take money from women like that.  Give it back.”  He wasn’t going to so the guy holding his arm pried his fingers open and took the money out and handed it back to me.  They were insistent that it was “one love and they were happy to help.”  Liz and I weren’t having it though so we said, “Ok look, at least let us buy you a drink.”  They agreed to that and they all went in and got a beverage.  Cost?  $12.  We gave the remaining funds to the guy who worked on the car and requested he buy another round.  There were hugs all around and lots of “thank you”s.  They kept insisting it was “nothing” and “one love”.

We drove away and just looked at each other and said, “What just happened?”  It was absolutely surreal.  One love, exactly one year after the worst hurricane in its history devastated the island.  THIS is the definition of One Love.  One Island.  What a phenomenal day.