Inner Ding

Picture by Patty Gebczyk

Recently as I was leaving my driveway, I noticed a boy I recognized as a distant neighbor walking to school. The weather was a bit too chilly for the thin jacket he was wearing and he walked slowly to one side to distribute the weight of the heavy duffel bag he carried. As I knew the middle school already began classes 15 minutes prior, I pulled up alongside him, introduced myself as his neighbor and asked if he needed a ride. He instantly accepted and heaved a sigh of relief into my car with his bag at his feet. With only a mile farther to drive he told me about his father who worked long midnight shifts, and his mother whom he has not seen since she left with his younger sister to Colorado three years ago. I wished him a good day and, on my way to work kept thinking about our bittersweet conversation. When I relayed this to my co workers they were quite dismayed, said though my intentions were good I was out of line picking him up that way, and perhaps he may get into trouble taking a ride from a stranger even though we were neighbors. “You should introduce yourself to his father and explain,” my coworker counseled.
Two days later as my son slid into the car after school, he told me about a missing woman in town who suffered from dementia, had wandered out of her home yesterday and hadn’t returned. We both knew due to the freezing temperatures it was hard not to think the worst, but we walked our road and backyard and kept our eyes peeled for her. Early the next morning she was reported dead after a first responder found her frozen in a ditch only a few hundred feet from our town’s main intersection. My husband shook his head sadly at this news and wondered aloud how many people must have driven right by this woman who was wandering long into nightfall without a coat.
It’s not that people are uncaring, it’s because they are afraid to look out for another in case their intentions are misconstrued for the worst. It takes a village to sustain a village, but all too often the media reports horrible situations of neglect and even abuse right under our noses within our own communities. This leaves us shaking our heads in sorrow and wondering how horrendous things can happen without drawing attention for help. It can be a fine line between maintaining safe boundaries, while keeping our intuition tuned towards situations in need of our help. It reminds me of that television show; What Would You Do, which makes you question which situations you would hurriedly pass to ignore, and which ones you couldn’t allow yourself to ignore without intervening.
And as for the boy’s father I introduced myself to the evening after I drove him to school? The father smiled as I approached and thanked me for the ride I offered his son as he was obviously not home to drive him to school himself.
In these crazy times, keep your "inner ding" tuned in and tapped on, and be aware of people who may just need a little help along the way. One day it might be you.