She told me that at the grocery store she had run into an elderly man. He was disabled and in a wheelchair. She spotted him having a very difficult time gathering his groceries.
He was trying to get some grapes and they had kept falling around him.
My girlfriend approached him and asked if he would like some help. She gathered some grapes for him and added them to his basket, which included some of those granny apple pies and other small food items.
She thought it was an odd assortment and then realized: it was all food that could be found on the bottom 2 shelves of the store.
You see he could only add to his small basket what he could reach.
She asked if she could help him finish his shopping and he told her in a shy way that there was no need. His wife was at the meat counter and would be back any minute.
My girlfriend said OK and turned, the first tears stinging her eyes at this point. She could see the meat counter from where she stood and no one was there.
It appeared the man had been lying, too proud to accept her help.
So she continued shopping, trying to hold back tears and before heading to the checkout lane she decided to see if she could find the man again to make sure he was OK. She found him, still in the produce department, just a few feet from where she had originally spoken to him; he had added nothing to his cart.
He was trying to reach the potatoes, and could not. She asked if she could help again. He looked down and thanked her, and politely said that it was ok because he was almost finished. My girlfriend sadly turned to leave. She gave one last look and saw the man was surrounded by people going about their business as he struggled to reach the produce, many reaching around or over him.
Crying, and she returned home and told me this story.
She said that even though he didn't want to ask for help and wouldn't have accepted it, the scene of all those people, reaching around him as though he was some kind of inanimate object and not even thinking to offer help was just so overwhelmingly sad.
----------
I'm about to turn 27. I'm a young guy. Even in my short lifetime, the feeling of what a community is has changed. I remember how as a child how we knew our neighbors, we had conversations with them, we dog sat for them, we had street parties. Those days feel like they are eroding. In my home town, my Dad no longer knows who lives in the houses next to him.
Neighbors and community garage sales, block parties and the kid next door that made the honor roll aren't as common anymore. It feels like we've lost something.
This is the legacy of the republican politics of the last 7 years. It has been a strategy of setting communities against each other, of casting aspersions, of every man and woman for themselves.
It is a way of governance that shrugs off the fact that the average family's income is lower now than in 2000.
It is a mindset that it is better for children to be uninsured than for insurance companies to take even a marginal hit.
It is a belief that the government works for the president and not for the people.
It fosters the notion that it is OK to attack law abiding community members for their political views because you think it is somehow part of your job.
It is a political arena where a front runner for president can say things like this:
What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
When you take a step back and look at all we've endured in these last few years, is it any wonder that folks could begin to feel isolated? How community might take a back seat to getting through the days unscathed? How stopping to ask someone if they could use a little help has become a little more rare than it ever used to be?
--------
I know, I know, back to the point...so why did I donate $50 to Rick Noriega? Will sending that money his way somehow change everything? Were he to be elected would all the worlds' wrongs be righted? Will those communities I remember from my childhood suddenly reappear?
Well, no, because
1. even big changes can't fix everything (see 2006 elections) and
2. communities like the ones I miss are changing into something new.
I can log on to the dKos and talk politics.
I can also talk birthdays, trade jokes and exchange pet pictures:
http://www.dailykos....
I can ask someone how I might go about a certain home improvement project:
http://www.dailykos....
I can peruse other sites and read stories about friends, families, great accomplishments, and I can share my own fears, worries and problems to a group of people who will give advice, offer the bright side, send their best wishes and offers to help.
Best of all I can head over to places like Act Blue and give $50 to Rick Noriega. Or I can donate a couple of bucks to Tom Allen in Maine or a host of other Democratic candidates anywhere else in the country who are fighting to reverse that republican legacy.
I can be a part of building a better community in places beyond my own little world. I can realize that community isn't dead. It has just been beaten to hell for a big chunk of my adult life.
When I found this place, among others, I began to understand that some amazing people were actively working to change that.
Sometimes, things come along and make you so glad that you're part of the good fight. That some good in the world is unassailable.
One of those things for me was listening to my girlfriend tell her story, holding on to me tightly and telling me how badly she just wanted to help. |
