In the summer of 1967, when I was 17
and newly graduated from high school, I had a job in the technical library of
the Newark, NJ conglomerate where my father worked as an engineer. (Nepotism at its finest.) I remember very little about the job, other
than the fact that I did clerical work that was both tedious and exacting
What I do remember is an important friendship
that blossomed during -- and lasted only the length of -- that summer. I don’t remember my friend’s name, what he
did for the company, or how it was that I began to have conversations with
him. More than likely, he came into the
library one day, and that was the start of our friendship. In any event, how we met is not
important. What is important is what he
did for me.
The man was African American, and, my
guess across the mists of time is that he was in his mid-to-late twenties. The fact of his heritage is important
because, having grown up in a white suburb in northern New Jersey, I had only
ever spoken with one person of color before meeting this man, who, for purposes
of this post, I will call “David.”
Our friendship was chaste, and he was
kind. Of course, I do not remember our
conversations in any kind of detail, but I know that we did not engage in small
talk. I know that we talked about civil
rights and the war in Vietnam. This was
the ‘60s, after all. I would have told
him that I was going to start secretarial school in September (there’s a detour
for another post) and he would have told me about his education and his work.
Yesterday, I came across this quote
from Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made
them feel.” That is what I remember
about David– how he made me feel.
He made me feel intelligent and as if I
were worth talking to. He was patient
and listened to this young girl as she tried to work her way through her
confusion and sorrow over the state of the world. I had watched the Civil
Rights Movement unfold on television. I
had been horrified by the police dogs and the fire hoses. But I had been a teenager, a not very mature
teenager, sitting in my white suburb with my white family and my white friends,
and had been at a loss as to what I could do about any of this. David took my concerns seriously. As I said, he was kind.
At end of the summer, David gave me a
wooden carving. I felt touched and
honored by the gift. I still have
it.
I
had only one more contact with David after that summer, a contact that I had
forgotten until yesterday, the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of Martin
Luther King, Jr.
David must have given me his address on
the last day of my employment at the conglomerate. How else could I have written to him on that
awful day seven months later when MLK was killed? I don’t remember what I said in my
letter. I expect that I once again
saddled him with my grief and fear and confusion.
I do remember that he wrote back. I long ago lost the letter, but I still
remember how it made me feel -- comforted and heard. What a gift to a very young woman who was
always being told that she was too intense, too sensitive, too much. What a
gift from a young African American man who must have had much more on his mind
than the feelings of a young white woman.
So, David, I may not remember your
actual name, but I do remember how you made me feel.
I hope that your life has been as kind
to you as you were to me. And I hope
that I have in ways, however small, occasionally paid your kindness
forward.
And may all who read this have a David or
two to see you through.
