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| photo by creature_cat via flickr |
She was young but her spirit had already walked many, many
miles. Her voice was rough, her eyes were tired, her body dragged. I saw her in
the hallway after she brought her little girl to school and before she headed
back to the projects where she and her three children lived. It was November in
Raleigh, North Carolina, 1997.
“G’morning, Tina,” I said to her
with a gentle smile.
She looked up at me with a softness
I hadn’t seen from her before, as if she needed kindness so badly, as if
without it, she didn’t know how she would make it through her day.
I reached
out to touch her arm, to give it a little squeeze. “I don’t have anyone in my
office right now,” I said. “If you have time, I’d love to talk to you.”
She nodded
and swallowed hard, trying her best to hold back tears.
I moved my
hand to hers and held it tightly as we walked back to my office. “It’s gonna be
alright," I whispered. "It’s all gonna be alright.”
She told me her story that day, a story of hope and
disappointment, abuse and tragedy, love and loss.
“I apply
for jobs when the kids are in school but preschool is only a few hours and I
need a job to pay for childcare, but I need childcare to have a job. I am so
tired, Miss Brynne, so tired. And it feels like no one cares a thing. I go to
the store and no one looks me in the eye, no one pays me any mind. It’s
like I’m invisible, something no one wants to see. I might not’a gone to
college, but I ain’t bad. I love my children just like the other lady does, I
just didn’t never get any help. I been doing it all on my own since I was
fourteen.”
We talked for a long while that day and lit a few candles in
that heart of hers to lighten up the darkest places. Tina cried and she cried
and she cried. And I listened and held her, hard, the best way I knew how.
A few weeks later, it was nearing Thanksgiving. I knew Tina
and her family wouldn’t have much but I didn’t say a thing. Until one day, the
last day of school before the holiday break, I had to.
“Tina?” I said to her, after she
watched her little girl run into the classroom to play with friends. “I have
something for you,” and I motioned for her to come with me.
As we walked to my car, I told Tina a story about an old lady
who had a lot of money. I told her how the old lady was angry and hurt because
no one cared, and no one needed her, not even her money. But after a while, that old lady realized that for people
to care about her maybe she needed to start caring herself, first. Maybe if she
gave, maybe if she smiled, maybe if she looked someone straight in the eye with
kindness from her heart, maybe then, what she needed herself would be returned.
Tina
listened and smiled to herself, thinking as we walked.
“So this old lady,” I said, “she
knew I worked in the projects and decided that she’d try giving right away.
So she gave me some money and told me what to buy.” I opened the trunk of my
car.
Tina looked in at a turkey and all
the fixings for a Thanksgiving feast. She covered her mouth and her eyes filled
with tears. “For me?” she said. “Really? For me and my babies? Well, I never—”
My own eyes
started welling up, too. “She asked me to give all this to someone who was in
danger of thinking no one cared. And for me to tell you she did. She didn’t
want any thanks, she just wanted you to not stop believing that the world is a
good and kind place. For it is, Tina. It is.”
We hugged that day in the cold, dirty parking lot of
Raleigh’s toughest neighborhood. Around us there was anger and ugly, but the
two of us, together we were our own little island. And that was all
that mattered. That, and that Tina never felt indebted to me for buying her
Thanksgiving dinner that year.
* * *
Listen. Listen to faces and eyes and words, and how she carries her
body. Listen when you want to believe the world is a good and kind
place. Listen to hearts with your own. Listen as you wish others would listen
to you…and they will. Ohhh, they will. Yes, they will, indeed.
