FOODFORTHOUGHT

By Marjorie Holmes

My parents never had much money, but they enriched us by their use of that wonderful word "maybe."

Much of the time it was a hope word. When we'd plead, "Can I have a new bike?" "Are we going to the circus?" Dad would have to ponder. "Maybe," he would say, not wanting to make a promise he couldn't keep.

"Maybe" was also their word for dreaming. "Maybe next summer we can take a trip to the ocean." "Maybe someday we can buy a little farm with a brook.

But the thing I remember best is that "maybe" was a word for making allowances for others. Whenever one of us would make a snap judgement, we would hear it. "Just look at the poor lady loading all those groceries in the car while her husband sits there. Why doesn't he help her?" "Maybe he's been sick," Dad sympathized. "Maybe he's had a heart attack." Or, Doesn't that woman look awful. Her slip's showing and she's got a big run in her stocking." Mother: "Maybe her strap broke and she doesn't have a safety pin. Maybe she doesn't know about the run."

All this came back to me one awful day when my brakes failed in city traffic. Terrified, I couldn't even pause at lights except to go bucking into neutral. "You fool! Why don't you learn to drive?" a passing motorist bawled.

In my instant hurt and outrage I wanted to bellow back, "You're rude, you're mean! Can't you see I'm in trouble?" I didn't -- it wouldn't have done any good. But that's not what stopped my tirade. It was simply the healing word "maybe." Maybe the man was already tired and mad and hurting. Maybe he's just been fired, or his mate is leaving him. Maybe nobody ever taught him to control his temper. Maybe he can't help it!

Still praying desperately, I finally made it to a filling station and safely home -- too grateful to blame anybody, and so relieved I found myself praying for that man.