My Uber driver broke down on the way to the airport on the short trip from Downtown Dallas to Fort Worth International.
Not mechanically, you understand. Her car was just fine.
She broke down emotionally, crying and then sobbing as we traveled together to make my flight to D.C. I left her with every last bit of weariness, frustration and sadness spent out in her car.
I think it was the relief of one decent fare in her day that triggered it all. A $32 dollar ride, that’s all it took. $32 dollars — not much, enough to puncture through the act of holding it all together when things seem too hard to bear. She tells me she cannot take much more of this, or the empty hours of nothingness or $5 for a two block ride with no thank yous and no smiles.
Like the thousands of others, she is not an Uber driver by profession. She is an IT worker, qualified and hard-working-- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."