I was encouraged by a friend to share this story.

My mom and I frequently use cabs. She is 90 years old, lives in her own home (with constant assistance) and last week began going to an adult day program. Mom also has memory issues, and — after beginning the day program — started thinking that one of the people she saw there was her husband, who died six months ago. As a daughter and as one of the people accompanying my mom through her aging, I perpetually learn how to respond to issues as they emerge, including this one.

After Mom's first day at the program, we were riding home in a cab, and she was fixated on Dad not coming home with us. I tried to share that the person she saw in her day program may have looked like Dad, but that he had a different name and wasn't Dad. It wasn't working, and I felt a little defenceless in the face of Mom's persistence. After some time I gently confronted her, saying flat out that Dad had died. I could hear only silence in the cab and feel her shock and sadness.

I have since learned other ways of responding to Mom's persistence on this issue; that there are times to tell "fiblets" and times to gently confront. At that time, I chose to confront, and after doing so, I began caressing Mom and apologizing for making her sad. It was then that the cab driver began working his magic. He so sweetly and sensitively deflected Mom's attention to the outside, to the beautiful light, to the leaves that were changing colour. While driving, he even playfully teased Mom about her seeing someone else in the future and perhaps thinking it was him. Through his sunny disposition, Mom brightened on the way home — a shift that carried into the evening.

After we got to our house and I got Mom seated on the front porch, I offered a more-generous-than-usual tip, saying to the driver that this was hardly compensation for what he had done, and a humble acknowledgement. He refused every cent of it. He had felt good about the exchange between Mom and him; he even considered Mom to be like his own mother, who died two years ago. He then said that he wanted to go up the stairs to the porch to say a final goodbye to Mom. Before he did that, though, he acknowledged something else: that very morning he had buried his own brother, who had died the day before.

Mom and I were truly ministered to by this cab driver. I felt beyond cared for through this person's actions — on a day when he could have been walled in by pain and grief, he reached out and caringly touched both Mom and me. We've received many kindnesses through the taxi drivers who have served Mom and me, and my Dad while he was alive. Taxi drivers deserve respect and the acknowledgement from both passengers and the City that they are a vital part of the city's transportation system. As in the case of my story, they oftentimes serve well beyond their prescribed role.