The Gift

One day in May, my cousin, Pinku, from India was visiting us. She had just wrapped up a business trip in New York City and was going to spend three days with our family in Toronto before heading home.

It was a long weekend and the first couple of days were spent visiting and eating and just plain catching up. Towards the end of the day on Sunday, she mentioned that her husband, Samar , loved anything Harley Davidson, to the extent that he had actually worn a Harley Davidson tie to an Indian wedding, if you can imagine! They had been married for only a couple of years and she really wanted to find a Harley Davidson shop to find a special gift for him. Being that it was almost Sunday night and the rest of us were not familiar with that type of merchandise, my mind began wondering how I could help her find something for Samar .

The problem was that she was flying out Monday night and since it was a holiday weekend, stores were closed. Monday morning, I made my usual drive to a nearby Tim Horton's to buy my morning pick-me-up. Coffee in hand, I walked back to my car and couldn't help noticing that there were three "bikers" - 2 men and 1 woman, all geared up in their leathers and t-shirts, bearing tattoos and ponytails, talking in the parking lot alongside their motorcycles.

I took another sip of my coffee and decided to take a chance. I got into my car and drove up beside them, turned off the engine, opened my car window, stuck my head out and said: "Hey." As I explained my dilemma and my desire to help my cousin find a memento for my cousin brother-in-law, one of the gentlemen offered the locations of a couple of stores that were nearby. I took note of these but responded that they would be closed and it would be a long time before she would have another opportunity to get to a Harley Davidson store...The man then took out his keychain and grabbed a leather piece that bore the Harley Davidson logo on it and slid it off the metal ring. He handed it to me as a gift for my brother-in-law. Surprised, I thanked him and drove away.

I returned home to my cousin with a gift from a stranger, along with a great story for my brother-in-law to recount as well as a renewed sense of hope - beyond appearances and stereotypes, people are not always what they appear to be, in fact they seldom are.

By Steve Michael

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