The children's toys lay stacked in the front yard. Clothes were thrown on the ground in several piles. The dishes and cooking pots had been gathered in paper grocery sacks, the mid-day sun glinting off one of the aluminum skillets. Truth be told, there wasn't that much. The young mother had been at the store with her two young children when the sheriff came knocking. It wasn't her first eviction. It would not be the last.
She found an abandoned gas station on the edge of town and made a deal with the owner to rent the place. Perhaps feeling remorseful, he told the single mother her 11-year-old son could do chores for him. The youngster was at his front door early the next day, eager to help his mother. Given a small push mower, he began cutting the owner's lawn, then several of his properties. The little boy was at it all day, finally finishing at dusk. When the sweating little boy knocked at the owner's front door, the man smiled benevolently, brought out a change purse, fished out 15 cents, and pressed it into his outstretched hand. Fifty years have passed, and the memory of staring at the two coins still burns bright. "I still remember the disbelief I felt," the man told me.
Who does that, I thought. I would've helped, I thought. Then I thought some more.
I was in an Arby's one hot summer day. I had stopped to get a soft drink, welcoming the cool air inside, when I heard the bang and the familiar crunch of metal. Walking outside, I saw two cars had collided at the intersection. Fortunately, no one seemed hurt, although both cars had their front ends folded. Standing by one car, a middle-aged couple was surveying the damage while also talking on their cell phones. Standing by the other car was a teenage girl, holding her arms tightly around her sides, tears streaking down her face.
I had started trying to figure out who was at fault, studying the angle of the cars, which still lay smoldering in the intersection, when a dull light went off in my head: I know that girl! She was a high school friend of my daughter's who had been to my house in the past. Coming to my senses, I jogged out to her and took her hands in mine and gently led her to the sidewalk. Holding her head to my shoulder as she cried, I repeated like a mantra: "Everything's going to be all right." Later, I thought about why, at first, I had done nothing. Why I had just watched from the side of the road? And if I hadn't recognized her, would I still be standing there?
My friend, reflecting on that long-ago day, told me he learned a life lesson. "I learned to be generous, to never do what had been done to me." I learned something too about myself that summer day. Transformation takes effort.
The world awaits us all. We slowly learn that we will lose people who can never be replaced, best intentions that can never be reached. That as we journey through life, we are not always the hero we think we are. And what little claim we can make for our divinity is forever lost when we let go of our compassion. As a wise man once taught: Wisdom says I am nothing; love says I am everything; and between the two, our life flows. And yes, sometimes love starts with just reaching out your hand.
Sey Young is a local businessman, father and longtime resident of Bentonville. Email him at [email protected].