A couple of days ago, I was putting groceries in my
trunk when this lady comes hobbling about with bags and all.
Can you help me please- she says. I've got both my eyes
stuck in the trunk so I don't look at her in the eye and catch sympathy. I play
that internal monologue that gets me a ticket out of guiltsville-- "there
are shelters for the homeless, services for the destitute, soup kitchens for
the hungry, and if I spare some change she'll just buy the next drink to
self-destruction..."
A lot of times that monologue never works anyway and I end
up sparing a dime. But as she speaks, I recognize she's from somewhere in
Africa. She also asks for something very specific. "I need $9.47 to get my
medicine from the pharmacy because my insurance card has not arrived and my
friend cannot pay for it and..." The story was stitched together
desperately, tearfully, with shame written all over her face.
I was now looking at her, because what beggar asks for
$9.47? I'm used to "gimme a quarter." I ask her what pharmacy. We
walk together right across. At the counter, sure enough, the pharmacist tells
me her meds are there. She went out begging only for enough to cover the pain
meds. I could tell she was in a lot of pain by how she was walking. It cost
exactly what she said.
I asked them what the total for all her meds were and I paid
for them. I ask her if she had food in her house, she says yes, she had a
little rice left that she's been eating for three weeks. We did food shopping,
even went to an African store where they sold something called kenkey that she
was truly grateful for. Having your people’s food in exile is always the next
best thing to being home.
I ask her where she lived and as I drive her there, she
tells me her sob story. A US legal resident who had completed her nursing
course and soon after suffered a stroke, worked briefly at a food store and got
laid off on account of her inability to stand for long hours. She was now
surviving hand-to-mouth, sometimes simply went out to beg. Her two housemates
were tired of bailing her out, and deep depression had become her daily
companion.
What about family? I asked. She said she had five grown
children, land and a husband back home in Ghana where she had been a teacher before winning the Green Card lottery. Yes, she was free to go back any
day, but she dared not think about it because they had lovingly nailed her to
the cross of expectations and placed on her a thorny crown of American dreams that pierced her flesh. The blood of festered hopes, desolation and failure dripped down her mahogany face and caked up at her tired feet. Over the years that she had
spent crucified on that cross, it had become extremely painful to bring herself
down from it as the nails of a clan’s misplaced needs had burrowed deeper and deeper.
 |
| Painting by Karni-Bain Bai, Carl (Nude). The bottom of life's travails lays you bear. |
She was a mother bearing an impossible burden on her broken
shoulders, for a family thousands of miles away. Yet she still wanted to hang
on to the hope that her Jesus will work it out and she’ll be able to bring two
of her kids to college so they may have a brighter future. I believed those
kids had a better shot right where they were in Ghana, unless they ventured out into the world without depending on her.
I told her she must find the strength to go back home, no
matter how broken she was. I tried to assure her that those who love her will
forgive her and take care of her. But she was still too terrified of her
perceived failure, of being a source of great disappointment.
She said to me, “You must understand this is no ordinary encounter. This morning, I had reached my wit’s end. I prayed for three
straight hours with great anguish. Then I decided to just go out like an animal
in the wild. I needed my pain medication desperately. When the pharmacy would
not give it to me, I cried and cried, and that’s when I went out and saw you
putting in your groceries. I took courage, carried my shame with me and
approached you. Don’t you see, you’re the angel my Jesus sent. May God abundantly bless
you and your house.” She wept saying this.
I forced the water heaving from my bosom back inward so it wouldn’t
spill out from my eyes. It got caught in my throat and made a painful knot
there. I turned away, because I knew the only reason I had upgraded this particular do-gooder
opportunity from the careless sparing of a dime to taking care of a broken soul
was out of bias: that she was African. I was no one’s angel. We all make false
claims on our resumes.
