If You Can Do Nothing Else...

People of the world, I have two words for you. Then I'll have a whole lot more, of course, because I do tend to go on.  But first just two, and here they are:

Be kind.

As I watch the media coverage (yes, I have power, don't hate me, I feel guilty enough I promise), I find myself walking around the house and muttering those two words, like a mantra, like a prayer.  Be kind.  Be kind.  Be kind.

I'm afraid of a lot of things. Not losing power on Monday meant I heard and saw, in real time, the things I was the most afraid of at that moment. Trees crushing people, a father in Rockland County, two little boys in Upper Westchester, right in their homes, gone in a second. A mother and her two babies in the rushing waters in Staten Island...I can't go on with that one, I don't need to, you've all heard it, we've all heard it and can't unhear it, can't unsee it through eyes open or closed.

So every time the house shook and groaned that night, I felt my body do that thing like a cat must do right before it pounces. Because it knew, my body that is, that it had to be ready to throw itself on top of those two small ones, those two little beings that own my heart...and it had to be ready to do it with or without my conscious participation.

As I said, I'm afraid of a lot of things.  But right now, the thing I'm most afraid of is people forgetting who they are. Forgetting that we are all made of exactly the same stuff, all on different roads that are all leading to exactly the same place, and that whether we've met or not, we're...

How to do this without being nauseously trite, cliche, churchy, Pollyana-ish, irritating. I don't want to annoy people, things are bad enough.  Let's try it this way:

One day, probably well more than a decade ago, I was having lunch with my parents at a McDonalds. I'm pretty sure it was the one in Mamaroneck, NY (much of which may still be underwater right now). I have no idea why we were doing this that day, it's not something we did much of once I'd grown up and moved out, we must have been at some event or something together and stopped for a bite.

A young couple with a baby sat at a nearby table. The baby was maybe a year or so, maybe a year and a half, old enough to eat some fries in her high chair, and one of those fries must have gone down the wrong way. Didn't seem like much at first, but after a few seconds of patting her back the baby's sounds started to change, and the mom and dad started looking like you never want to see any mom or dad look.

Before I knew what was happening, my mother, a registered nurse and unregistered supermom, had gotten out of her seat.  In what I remember as one swift, graceful movement, she took the baby from that other mother, held her with one arm so the baby's head was angled downward diagonally, thumped her tiny upper back between her shoulder blades while holding her that way, and then we finally heard what we were all begging God for, the outraged cries of one pissed-off baby.

At that, my mother handed the child back to the grateful parents, who were falling over themselves as they tearfully tried to express their thanks in their broken English.  And then it was over. Kind of.

I sat in that spot where I'd been frozen those few seconds it took for this world-shaking event to occur as I watched my mom come back to her seat. Then, for lack of anything else to do, and at a loss for words, we all started eating again. Silently. As if nothing had just happened. Kind of.

But as I sneaked looks at my mother between bites of my Quarter Pounder with Cheese, I saw her face do that thing--that thing when it's fighting itself not to cry, which to this day hurts my solar plexus like some giant brute just gave it a good sharp elbow. She and my dad were looking at each other, and I saw that his face was doing it too.  And then it hit me.  They were remembering.

They'd been here before. It was Zwieback toast instead of french fries. (BTW, don't give Zwieback toast to your babies, eat it yourself, it's great dunked in coffee.)

And instead of that stranger baby with the blocked windpipe, it was me.

Yep, I'm here today to babble endless stream-of-consciousness at you because of one simple fact: After trying everything you're supposed to try to save a choking baby, methods my mother could do in her sleep, my father finally did that last-resort thing you're not ever supposed to do because you risk lodging the blockage further. But my face was blue-black at this point, and it was time for the Hail Mary play.  He reached down my throat with his finger and scooped that chunk of baby-death-cookie right out of my windpipe.

I'll bet that back then, a thousand years or so before, I sounded just as pissed as that other baby.

But the point is this: At that moment in McDonalds, there was no "other" baby, was there?. What my mother did without even thinking was demonstrate what we ALL know in the deepest parts of us.

There are no "other" babies. There are no "others" period.

As we drive around right now, it's going to be easy to hate each other. Believe me, I get it. This one will try to cut you in line to get to the pump faster.  That other one will look at you funny.  Some other one will shoot her big mouth off because she's been idling in line for 4.37 hours and the driver in front of her just got the last drop of fuel available for miles. He's selfish, she's inconsiderate, he's texting and not paying attention, move up already, moron!!!!

And guess what else.  The news media will show you these moments.  Moments like this are nice and loud, they draw the camera's attention. They tell a story. We're all going to hell in a handbasket, sleep in your car or your gas'll get siphoned, folks are snapping left and right, punching each other out on Main Street, every man for himself, people suck. Not a pretty picture.

But is it the real picture? Because what about the moment where one guy notices the harried woman pulling her hair out in the minivan with the seven screaming kids, and he decides to let her in ahead of him in line?  You're never going to hear about that guy. But he's going to do it, and it's going to make her feel like she'll be able to make it through the day without ending up in a padded room drooling into a cup. And he's not the only guy who's going to do it, thousands will do this kind of thing. You won't hear about it. It's not loud.

Then there's that  woman who sees the ancient looking man with Jersey plates who doesn't have a clue about how to pump gas because it's against the law to do that in his state and the last time he did it he had hair. Where's the lever? What's with these buttons? Swipe what?  Instead of being outraged that he's making an interminable wait even more interminable, this woman will go up to him and gently help him cope. She'll show him how to run his card, what buttons to push. He'll be so relieved that he knows he'll never forget her.  PS, this will happen over and over again too. You won't see it on the news nearly as much as you'll see the angry mobs who think they're in a Mad Max movie. But KNOW this, friends. It is happening. More than the rage and flying fists. People are helping each other. Even if it's just that wry smile from one to another that says, "Man, this sucks."  Lives are saved because of acts this simple, acts that ripple and ripple beyond your wildest dreams.

Most people will remember who they are in these times.  Please be one with most people.

Be kind.