Let me tell you about Eleanor. One day she did something so small, so insignificant, she could never have imagined the impact it would have.
On a cold day in December, the sky as white as snow covered fields. Eleanor, in her black beanie hat and matching gloves, was drawn to the sound of guitar strings, and words of a song she once knew. They pulled her in, connecting her present to her past. She could almost feel his arms around her as they danced, before he got ill and passed away.
Overcome with emotion, Eleanor pushed through the crowd and found herself standing in front of a busker, an elderly man, cold and lonely and lost in his song. Eleanor dropped a five-pound note in his guitar case, attached to it was a letter.
Shivering, the busker counted his earnings with frosty fingers, a wide smile stretched from ear to ear upon finding the letter; thank you for the song, Eleanor. He tucked the five pounds into his wallet, and with his shoulders back and chin high, he strode across the road and into a betting shop. He left five hundred pounds richer.
He swung his arms and whistled as he walked, unaware of how much his aura warmed the chilly hearts of the shoppers around him. So fulfilled was his heart from the note off a lady called Eleanor, he entered a pub, and bought everyone a drink.
Sat in a corner at a table for one, a girl twirled a lock of fiery red hair around her ringless finger, her thoughts drifting on an uncertain future. But after hearing the words, ‘the drinks are on me,’ a flicker of hope sprung from within, a sudden sense of calm, everything would be OK.
Standing, she straightened her clothes, finished the remains of her free drink and stepped out into the fog that had descended on the town. Remembering the mobile blood donation van she’d walked past earlier; she headed in that direction, ‘one good turn deserves another,’ she told herself as she stepped inside. A fresh pint of blood was on its way to the lab.
Leonie lay in the bed of the emergency room. Her rare blood type, B positive meant she was in critical condition. She was one pint of blood short of having a transfusion. A doctor appeared, ‘we’ve found a match.’ Through falling tears and a loss of words, her parents held on to one another.
Leonie was saved.
Saved because of a generous blood donation from a girl, who’d found hope in a free drink from a busker, who’d been moved by a thoughtful tip and a letter from a woman overcome with emotion.
And all because Eleanor heard a song.
Marie Lott Writer 