One Connection at a Time

...One compassionate connection at a time

A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference to that one!”

The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

— Adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren C. Eiseley

The day before the anniversary of her son’s birth and his burial 24 years later, on the same date in May, my friend JB engaged in some retail therapy. It’s not Macy’s that draws her, but rather Jewish Family Council Thrift Store, Out of the Closet, and any other shop which carries gently used, throw-back, and vintage items. 

Anniversaries of the loss are particularly rough for her - even sixteen years later. This time, she went into Out-of-the-Closet to wait out rush hour traffic in L.A.  She’d been hiking with one of her former students who needed an ear. The gal's mom had recently died, she had a new baby, and was totally overwhelmed. During the hike, the young woman turned to my friend and asked, only half jokingly, if JB would be her mom. 

My friend has recently taken to holding “office hours” in some lovely spots: Echo Park Lake, our old haunts in Elysian Park, or Griffith Park with its stellar views of ocean, mountains, and city skyline.

This day, having let other people’s schedules dictate her own, (this was not an exception for my dear friend… she is a very giving person), by the time she headed home, the traffic was at a crawl on 101 North, so she slowly exited in Hollywood and made her way toward a retail therapy shop she loves and trusts. 

Once parked and inside the shop, she found some gems, including books: I Remember Nothing, by Nora Ephram, and William Steig’s Amos and Boris, a charming children’s book about a mouse who takes powerful actions which, with the help of friends, ultimately do great good. 

My friend is fond of buying copies of her favorite books when she sees them, so she can share them with just the right person, when occasion, need, or whim dictates. It's a bit of a miracle when a book, cleverly filed in the bowels of her cluttered home, actually finds its way into the hands of the lucky intended recipient. When it does happen, JB is very happy. The recipient is overjoyed.

While perusing the shop’s shelves, she suddenly and forcefully realized she needed a bathroom. She approached the counter and asked the young man behind it where the restroom was. “Can’t let you use it.” He replied, "It's store policy. I could lose my job, if I let you.”

''Look, I get it. I used to teach at a clinic, and after class, late at night, I drove some of my pregnant students home so they wouldn't have to take three busses. I could have lost my job too. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble…. but I really have to go. Could I see your manager?"

"Sorry," he replied, "I am the manager."

Considering her options as she squeezed her knees together on the other side of the counter, JB persisted, "What you don’t know, is what it’s like to be old, and have things like urgency emergencies. This IS Out of the Closet, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, I love my other son's partner more than many of my girlfriends love their daughters-in-law... NOW, may I please use the toilet? I promise I'm not a heroin addict or a terrorist. I just have to pee.”

With a sigh and a chuckle, and key in hand, he said, "The bathroom is this way. Follow me."

Exiting the bathroom with obvious relief, she waved to the young man, now in his tiny, but immaculate office, thanking him profusely while standing in the doorway.

He waved his hand as if to say, “It’s OK.” Then he really looked at my friend and said, “You know, I haven’t spoken with my mom in over two years, and I’m not sure I ever will again. Seeing you makes me wish I could just call her.” 

"That's a long time not to speak to your mother."

"Yeah, and she's seventy five."

My friend is a compassionate listener. Holding her treasured book finds, she sat down to hear the rest of the story. 

“Would it help If I stay here while you call her?"

"No, she's in another country, and it's... complicated."

"I had a son. I will never be able to call him again,” my friend said. She didn’t go into the details of her son’s kidnap and subsequent murder, but something in her tone emboldened the young man to confide further that he was one of eleven kids, and that he didn’t think his mom ever wanted to be a mom, and how she had left them all to be raised by their grandparents, and moved to another country.

"If your mom's seventy five, she didn't have a choice back then to terminate a pregnancy. She must have been totally overwhelmed. Look, I'm really glad you were born, and that I got to meet you… and not just because you let me use the bathroom." They both laughed.

"And I'm truly glad to have met you," the young man said. "I never considered my mother's perspective. I will definitely call her."

Another employee announced that the shop would be closing in five minutes, so please bring your purchases to the counter.

As they both stood, my friend said, to the young man, “I’ll be back one day to see how it went when you called your mom.” 

They ended their exchange, each with a promise, sealed with a hug.

One compassionate connection made a difference... to TWO starfish that day!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sunday was an enlightening day. I spent six hours alternating between reading Sylvia Boorstein's book, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness," and looking down from three thousand feet above the USA, marveling at our country's vastness, its variations of topography, weather, and geology.

New York's spring is in full bloom. Balmy air, soft breezes, seventy to eighty degrees… just beautiful weather bade us farewell from JFK at six a.m. Sunday. Returning home to Oakland that afternoon, we found it was sixty degrees with a blustery wind-a-blowin'! What we saw in between was eye-opening.

The lower portion of Lake Michigan's ruffled surface was visible when the clouds parted, driven westward by the winds.

Parts of the mighty Mississippi were also visible shining below a thin layer of misty clouds.

The plains of the mid-west were laid out checker-board fashion, just right for the shadow of our Jet Blue vehicle to skip across the patchwork of crops. There were also huge circular plots planted in varying shades of green. 

Going over the Rockies, I was heartened to see the tippy tops of the mountains fully packed with snow, but the expiration date on the white stuff is just a few days away, or weeks, if we're lucky. Ditto, the Sierra Nevada. A pretty good snow pack, but not comparable to years past. West of the Sierra's is really, really scary. Brown. 

In a roast of his sister, whom we surprised for her seventieth birthday in New York Saturday, my husband talked about California's Governor being Brown, along with the air, the water, and the grass!

To see the effects of the drought from twenty five hundred feet up is to realize the enormity of the problem. We're talking LIFELESS DESERT out there, folks. I so wish we could help out the folks in Texas by siphoning off their surplus!

I saw a portion the San Andreas Fault clearly. It's a stark line of demarcation between two plates of Earth's crust - each on the move! I will not be watching that new movie! I have quite enough horror in my imagination! But I am reminded that I want to get a big barrel for extra water storage, and organize a plan in case of emergency. And I plan to practice the meditation Boorstein talks of that promises greater equanimity!

Hey, if San Francisco and L.A. are moving closer together, it will make the drive between  the two cities a shorter distance, right? Some time in the future, right? With all this s**t around here, there must be a pony somewhere!  But, let's hope the close proximity of SF and LA is a L-O-N-G time away in the distant future, shall we?