Broken

Last night I walked from my apartment in Alamo Square down to a cafe in Hayes Valley. After stuffing myself with a nicoise salad and offering a few melodramatic lines to my journal, I headed back up the hill towards the Lower Haight. My target was Three Twins Ice Creamery; my excuse: confusion, loneliness, and other ridiculous feelings that tend take over when I forget to look outside of myself.

About halfway up the hill, two men were sitting on the steps up to one of those quintessential San Francisco victorians, chatting and smoking.

"Woah, did you see that?" the older guy said.

"Yeah, some people... they don't even realize what they're doing!" the younger man sighed.

Certain that they must be talking about me, I ripped my eyes away from the sidewalk that I had been so diligently studying. A few yards in front of me a man was splayed out on the ground, half of his body on the sidewalk, half on the street. His wheelchair was toppled next to him and his oxygen tank, still attached to his nostrils, had rolled into the front tire of a white van parked a few feet away. About a  hundred yards up the hill a young guy in athletic wear was running with a dog by his side, and, I imagine, headphones in his ears.

"Do you need help? Buddy, I know you do," the younger guy said gently, rushing towards the old man and beginning to lift him from the street.

The other man righted the wheelchair and picked up the oxygen tank.  The man who had been knocked out of his wheelchair just stared at them and nodded his head.  His eyes looked so open, and empty, and lost. A few drops spilled silent out of them, and I stared into them and felt my own growing tight.

I stood there for a moment, a few feet away, watching, wondering what I should do. People passed by on both sides of the street, hurriedly, examining the sidewalk that I too had found so fascinating. I opened my mouth and waited for some offer of help to come out, but nothing did. And then, I turned around and kept walking up the hill.

As soon as I turned my back to the scene, I started crying. And, for the first time in a long while, I started to pray in a way that actually felt real. I walked around my neighborhood for another 20 minutes just sobbing and thinking and praying that the man would be okay, that the other two would check him for any injuries and call an ambulance if they needed to. I prayed that they would figure out if he had family and call them. I prayed that he had daughter who would come for him and care for him and make everything okay. And I prayed for the two men, and I wished that I were more like them.

I never went back to check to see if everything had turned out okay. Every time I circled back in the direction my feet somehow led me in a different direction again.

The world is full of scenes just like this one.  The same cast of characters is almost always present:

• The man who causes hurt and injury without even realizing it, and keeps running along, thinking about his own troubles and plans.  
• The man who is hurt, attacked out of no where, with no warning, and through no fault of his own.
• The men who choose to stop what they are doing to try to help, who offer love and support even though they don't have to.  
• The men who stop and stare for a while, but are too afraid to do anything.  
• And, of course, those who don't even stop, but just keep walking, pretending like nothing is wrong. 

Last night, my role was not a staring one. It's a not a role I want to admit to having played. And it's not a role I want to play again.

Last night re-taught me that we are all interconnected, and our actions always reverberate into others' lives and hearts, even if we don't realize it. I remembered that I have had a whole lot of people come pick me up off the sidewalk each time I've been knocked down. Now it's time for me to stop being self-absorbed, to stop being afraid, and to start lifting up others, wherever and however I can.