Last night, I was at my favorite diner and I see a neighbor stumble in and sit down at the counter. He was obviously drunk and not in good shape. A waitress approaches him and a quick exchange ensues. The waitress turns and asks if anyone has a cellphone that he could use. No one offered. After a few seconds he leaves. I then ask the waitress what he needed. She said his brother had died and he was trying to call family to find out what happened. Immediately, I get up from my laptop(yes, I was working at a diner) and go outside to offer any help I could. He had not made it out of the parking lot when I called for him. I approached and asked him what happened. He told me that he just learned that his brother had died and he was trying to learn why and how. I immediately started thinking about my mother and how my friend drove me to Battle Creek after frantically calling all of my friends for help. Then started thinking about my brother who has had a battery of medical issues for the past two years, coincidentally, his issues started a few months after our mother died in 2008, wondering, who would help me if I was not able to communicate freely as I do. I had my neighbor sit down and started asking him for family names and cities they lived in. I called 411 from my cell phone and the first attempt, struck out – no luck. Then I started ‘Googling’ and Yahoo searching for his family and at the same time, calling friends that lived in the same city that his family lived in. No results from Google and Yahoo and no responses or calls from friends. That’s when I got a little pissed. My frustration came not from being able to quickly access the information, but how all of the information and ways of communication we have readily available but not being able to connect to it when we need it the most, and at this time, I needed it the most. I asked my neighbor to join me back in the diner, sit next to me and have a cup of coffee. I connected to the internet via my old Motorola RAZR and began using other search methods to find his family. I used whitepages.com to find multiple listings. Once I did that, I called 411 again and this time explained to the same operator what the situation was and asked for any listings she may have that matched what I found on whitepages.com. I received two texts with information and on the second listing, I found his brother. I handed the phone to my neighbor and let him talk and get the information that he needed. His brother did die and he did get some solace in knowing that he did not die alone (I am hoping that is what the family told my neighbor).
After he hung up, he talked, trying to explain what he had been told in his emotional state and thanked me for my help. It wasn’t that I wanted to feel good about helping him, it was more for me about the challenge to find the information that he needed to help ease his pain. It wasn’t the fact that it was Black people helping Black people; it was about who has helped me when I needed it and how I could & would respond when someone else needed help and had no one other than strangers.
After he left, one of the diner ‘regulars’ said he was impressed about me helping my neighbor. I only said thanks. I would’ve liked to have said something witty and poignant regarding how just being able to help when you are able to is sometimes just not enough. Sometimes, you must to help even when you are not wanting, willing or able too. I didn’t. I just let it be what it was, helping for helping’s sake.
