Grandma rarely came to the beach anymore to join her large extended family at the family reunion. She was eighty-five, and coming down the long wooden stairs from the boardwalk to the beach, trudging through the sand, and sitting in the sun was difficult at her age. But she always liked to come down to the beach at least once over that six-day stretch, even if it was only to say hello for a few minutes. I picked her up at the beach house and luckily we found a parking spot, not too far from the boardwalk.

It was hot. The temperature was in the mid nineties, without much of a breeze. Grandma was walking slowly and I held her hand. She was stooped over from years of osteoporosis, so sometimes she had difficulty holding up her head. About halfway down the stairs, we both saw a somewhat overweight woman struggling to get her beach bag back on her shoulder. She had stopped climbing the stairs and was a little pooped out. “May I help you?” Grandma asked. The woman nodded and Grandma slowly proceeded to help readjust the bag on the woman’s arm. The woman seemed a little bewildered at first that this perfect stranger, older than herself, had stopped to help her. Her facial expression then changed, and with soft and appreciative eyes she thanked Grandma. With some effort, Grandma raised her head and looked at the woman. The eye contact was but for a brief moment. “One for another,” Grandma said. She lowered her head, took my hand, and continued down the stairs. Not another word was said. It was a precious exchange.

I’m sure that Grandma never remembered the incident or thought that it was anything special. The same sort of thing probably repeated itself again and again over the years for Grandma. However, for me, it was powerful. I was dumbstruck by that little moment of caring and Grandma’s humanity. “One for another.” Those three words that came off Grandma’s lips so effortlessly became seared in my memory. I thought those three words, that simple phrase, carried a message that could benefit us all. “One for another” was Grandma Golden’s Rule.