With a smile on my face and a feeling of accomplishment, I came home two hours after candle-lighting. My husband and son were waiting for me; they were both eager to find out what had happened. When I told them, we clearly saw the hand of Hashem throughout.
Chana, our neighbor, who recently had surgery, was hurriedly leaving her apartment to go away for Shabbos. She was in a rush because it was late; the car service which had just come for her had to hurry to get her to her destination in time. Chana had several bags with her. She got into the car and let the driver put them all into the trunk. Unbeknownst to her, he inadvertently left a bag with important medications on top of another car and sped off to her friend’s home. The bag could have easily been blown away by the wind.
One of my neighbors noticed Chana’s bag right after candle-lighting, but she couldn’t get it because it would entail carrying on Shabbos. She asked someone on his way to shul to bring it inside to us. The bag was now safely in our possession, and we saw that it contained Chana’s medicine bottles. I knew right away that we had to get the bag to her. The only problem was that we had no idea where she was staying for Shabbos.
Nevertheless, we decided that we must try. A few of us started thinking about how to handle the situation, and Shayna, one of my neighbors, mentioned the name of a close friend of Chana’s who might know where she was staying for Shabbos. We decided to walk over to Chana’s friend, hoping that she might know Chana’s location. We knew that Chana must be frantic about her medicines. So Shayna and I hurriedly walked over to Chana’s friend and explained the situation to her. We couldn’t believe it when she told us where Chana was staying and that it was only two blocks away from her.
Shayna and I hurried over there, and were told that Chana was next door trying to figure out where her bag was. Chana’s hostess’s mother’s home health care aide was calling the car service. Chana was trying desperately to get in touch with the driver. She had no idea that we had the medicines. I ran over and told her that I had the bag in my home, and saw an instant look of relief wash over her face. She kept repeating, “I can’t believe that you walked over here.” After a few minutes, she admitted, “I haven’t taken any of the medicines today and I was supposed to take them this morning. I’m starting to feel pain.”
Our next problem was how to get the bag to Chana. Because it was Shabbos, we couldn’t carry it over. Mrs. Stern, her hostess, brought us all – Shayna, Chana, and me – to a rav, who told Chana right away that she must get her medications. The rav had an aide himself, who he sent along with my neighbor and me to carry the bag back to Chana.
When we got to my house, I gave the bag to the rav’s aide, confident that Shayna and I had done a huge mitzvah and happy that we had cared for Chana.
The sequence of events made it so obvious that Hashem was watching over Chana and had orchestrated each occurrence so that she could get her medications.