Thursday, April 5, 2018

KINDNESS REMEMBERED




         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 have carried it with me through all of my moves for over 50 years.

        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.

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