At Least They're Committed

My feet were smacking hard on the pavement as I walked because it was that kind of day and I just needed to walk to escape. But no. There is no escape for me. I rounded the corner from 128th to Lowell as the RTD bus drove up. A man with a walking stick that actually really needed it walked toward the bus then teetered back. I thought, “No, he’ll catch himself.” He didn’t. He fell. Scrambling to grab his backpack, I walked quickly toward him but it seemed to take forever. He seemed to be on the ground a lifetime. Anyway, I circled in front of him and grabbed his backpack and hoisted at least that burden. My mind quickly fell back to college, when my friend Chris with cerebral palsy would fall. “Dooon’t try and help me up!” He finally said, after I’d yanked on him for the zillionth time. “I weigh more than you, you’ll be down here, too!” Since then I’ve always just offered people my hand, my body weight, all of it, to pull themselves up. I put my hand out to this man who looked so very ancient but I realized was less than a decade older.

He said, “It’s heavy,” when I hoisted his backpack. I said, “No, it’s fine!” He fidgeted with his walking stick, it was hard wood and rough hewn and lightly sanded and stained. I reached over to try to hold it steady for him.

A woman from the bus lept off and ran up behind him. She didn’t know him either and her hair was bleach blonde and you could tell by the lines in her face she smoked. A nurse. I could tell. She quickly slid her right arm under his left arm. I recognized the move, I’d seen my husband the PT do it before when helping to lift the sick and wounded. But I don’t know the move.

As she hoisted him to his feet he looked at me and said, “I just moved here from Iowa.” I have no clue what I said back. I think it was something as profound as, “Iowa! Cool!” The bus driver had jumped down the steps now. He ran to the man’s right side and helped as the nurse finished hoisting the man to his feet. The bus driver, milky chocolate skin and a beautiful white teeth, smiled and reached to me, to the man’s backpack. I smiled back and handed over the backpack. I turned and walked away.

Four blocks later I started to cry because, though confident that I’d done what I could, what I was supposed to, I hadn’t done enough.