THE LAWN AIDES
My dad, who's in his mid-80's and wheelchair-bound, still insists on doing his own yard work. One day last summer, he was outside cutting up a fallen tree limb when a woman driving past pulled over. She told my dad that she was amazed to see a man in a wheelchair using a chainsaw. The two of them spent a few minutes chatting before she left. Twenty minutes later she returned with her husband and teenage son in tow, all wearing work clothes. The family, whom my dad had never met, spent the next three hours helping him in the yard.
Andrea, New York City