I walked in to the kitchen and saw both kids scurrying around packing their lunch for school tomorrow. This lunch making session was no different. Urgency for my son was at DEF CON Four. He is like me. For the princess, prancing around pausing in between verses of the song she was singing, she was challenging him. It delighted me and annoyed the Little Mister.
But Love Helps.
She was stuck in a quandary. On one side she needed help. On the other side, she wasn't about to ask him for help. Big sisters don't ask little brothers for help.
That is when they noticed I had walked in and observed Family Ties.
I slipped through, acting as if nothing had been observed. I was headed to grab the digital camera. It seems my pension for paparazzi captures the best and worst of a moment. Then I was socked in the gut with a moment that mattered.
As she tried to reach the top shelf to grab a part of her lunch, he noticed. He is tough and tenacious...and tender. I threw the camera up and snapped a master piece that I would call "Love Helps."
I remember watching Collateral, a movie with Tom Cruise (Vincent, the hitman) and Jamie Fox (Max, the cab driver). BK reminded me of this scene.
[Approx 15 min into the movie] Max picks Vincent up at the airport and this conversation rolls out.
Max: First time in L.A.?
Vincent: No. Tell you the truth, whenever I'm here I can't wait to leave. It's too sprawled out, disconnected. You know? That's me. You like it?
Max: It's my home.
Vincent: 17 million people. This is got to be the fifth biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other. I read about this guy who gets on the MTA here, dies.
Max: Oh.
Vincent: Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices."
But reality is much worse than fiction....Consider this story from a NY hospital...
In Plain Sight, A Woman Dies Unassisted on Hospital Floor
A security guard looks on. Image via NYCLU
On June 19, a woman collapsed and lay face down on the floor of the waiting room at a Brooklyn hospital for an hour before anyone checked on her. By that time, she was dead. When a surveillance video was released showing the whole incident, that the media took notice. A video shows several other patients and a few security guards looking on. [Site Source: Link]
BUT IT GETS EVEN WORSE
A Croatian woman sat dead in front of TV for 42 years....
The remains of a woman have been found sitting in front of her TV - 42 years after she was reported missing. Hedviga Golik, who was born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cup of tea before sitting in her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television. Croatian police said she was last seen by neighbors in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old. Her neighbors thought she had moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb. But she was found by police who had broken in to help the authorities establish who owned the flat.
"When officers went there, they said it was like stepping into a place frozen in time.
"The cup she had been drinking tea from was still on a table next to the chair she had been sitting in and the house was full of things no one had seen for decades. Nothing had been disturbed for decades, even though there were more than a few cobwebs in there." [Site Source: Link]
THIS LEAVES ME JACKED UP ON SO MANY LEVELS.
They say the worst form of punishment is solitary confinement. Essentially, isolation.
Un-noticed. Dead in plain site on a hospital floor.
Alone. Dead in her own apartment and not even missed, much less found for more than four decades.
Think about how many people are alone. Maybe they are surrounded in an existence of humanity, but still they feel alone. The bottom line is we are better with each other. We are better in community together.
I live by the approach to life that is pretty simple. Invest, Invite, Include.
Invest in the physical needs of others.
Invite people into the world I call mine.
Include others on the journey to "there."
Look around. Find those alone and reach. You will be glad you did.
Think,
JHARP
