“Thanks”

As I sprinted into the subway car, I noticed a woman on the platform stop, reach down, and pick a smartphone up from the ground.  She started waving it, saying loudly, “Someone dropped this phone!”

Just as the subway doors were about to close, she leaned in and handed the phone to a passenger standing next to me.  A third guy says, “I think it belongs to him,” gesturing to a man in a blue overcoat who was walking through a door to the next car.  A few gestures, a few shouts, and we get this guy’s attention.  The man standing next to me hands him his phone.

“Thanks,” he says, with a nod, and then turns away, nonplussed, as if dropping his phone on the platform and having it pass through three sets of hands while he walks away, oblivious, is just a normal occurrence.  As if people instantly dropping everything to help him isn’t worth more than a little acknowledgment.

And it occurred to me: it’s not that we don’t get touched by angels from time to time.  It’s just that we fail to notice.