Taxi!

"Do you have any books to help you learn English?"
"Your English sounds pretty good to me?"
"No, it is for my friend.  You selling these?"
"No, giving them away."
"Free?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes, free.  What do you like to read?"
"Novels mostly."
"Here, this one was fun, very light."
"Can I have this too?" she says pointing towards a book on math.
"Yes, please feel free."
"It is for my son."
"How many kids do you have?"
"Three and all of them have graduated from college."

I look at her cab, which is pointing the wrong way on my street.  She stopped suddenly to look at the books I have on "Curb Alert."  The engine is still running.  In the back of her cab window is a rear window sign for Stony Brook College.  "Did your son go to Stony Brook"
"No, my daughter.  She gave that to me so I would never forget where she was.  I told her I'm putting this on my cab so you never forget where you came from."

Before she leaves she has an arm load of books.  Each one she carefully asks me again if she can take.  I ask her where she is from.
"Colombia.  I am one of 11 brothers and sisters.  We all live here.  I used to go back home, but haven't gone in a long time"
She is probably my age and wears full makeup and a huge broach on her shirt.  Her bosom is big and the shirt is tight, so the pin kind of looks like a plate on a dining room table.   

She thanks me and waves profusely.

As she drives off I think about a play I was once in called "Bits and Pieces."  It was a one-act play with 23 scenes. (Yes, it was ridiculous)   There were four or five actors.  We were on stage for all 23 scenes, which didn't really have any rhyme or reason to the order.  We all took to writing the scene names on our hands.  The play was about a young man who dies in a car accident and donates his body and organs.  His grieving wife goes around the country to meet the 21 different people who got one of his bits or pieces.  With each visit the dead man comes to visit her and eventually she can let go of him and stop grieving. 

Each bit, or piece or book that I give away seems to be going to someone who wants or needs it.  In return they leave me with a bit of themselves.  An image.  Some dialogue.  A story.  Or even the comfort of an empty box that I can fill up again.