This morning at my local coffee shop the woman in line ahead of me turned and looked at me and told the gal behind the counter that she was adding whatever I wanted to her order. She told me that today she's paying it forward. I lifted my eyebrows and asked if she'd planned ahead to do this the night before, or if she had decided in that moment to practice random acts of generosity.
It turns out that she's paying it forward in honor of a friend's child - a two year old who died of cancer - it would have been his birthday today. After she tells me this, my eyes sting with sudden, not-quite tears, and then we both have red eyes but keep it polite, don't cry. I am amazed at this sweet way to honor the beloved dead, allow them a voice in their silence. To do a kindness for another person, casual, in the moment, no other thought but today I decide to pay it forward.
"Okay, I'll have a coffee. Just a dark roast drip coffee."
"That's all, isn't there something else you'd like?"
I can hear the disappointment in her voice, so I order a chocolate croissant, which I don't ever splurge to enjoy unless it's in the day old basket or I require a chocolate and buttery flaky bread fix to survive the day. I thank her and she moves forward into her day, and I into mine. And the honored dead do whatever it is they do after life, and I am left with food for thought and ecstatic tastebuds.
People have paid it forward over the millennia; this is not a new concept that began with the novel Pay it Forward, published in 1999 by Cathering Ryan Hyde, or with the movie of the same name the following year. One of my favorite traditions, the potlatch, was the cornerstone of the Pacific northernwest native peoples until a ban by the Federal government in 1884. For some communities, like the Puyallup tribe in Washington State, it remains so to a more limited degree.
This is not your casserole and cherry pie type potlatch, but a necessary means by which these societies took care of the poorest amongst themselves. It also acted as a means to solidify the strength and connectivity of the community. The hosts accumulated food and goods in order to be able to hold a gathering, where a marriage or birth amongst other important events was celebrated with a feast layed out and the honoring the attendees with gifts. Often, it was a way for the wealthy to exhibit their power, as they could give and give more. A wealthy person might become poor in the process, but solidifed their stature in the community.
If instead of banning this practice, the US government had adopted it, we'd see an America that looks and functions radically different to what it does at present. With the heavy hand of Big Business and the personification of corporations that leaves them running wild and trampling our democracy, we could stand to have a shift to pay it forward rather than pay it to we, we, we. And I mean the corporate we, as if these companies had been graced by God like kings or queens to do whatever they want in order to reap the bounty of profit and power.
In this moment, I have no control over the structure of corporations in the US, and I can't say I'm even close to the kind of audacity it would take to shift from an attitude of survival mentality to a full on giveaway at a party. But a more altruistic attitude doesn't have to be relegated to grandiose gestures, it doen't take much to offer some small kindness to another person. A cup of coffee, the quality of empathy, even the moment shared to contemplate an almost new being already gone and grieved.
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