Who Was That Boy

My daughter was getting into the car after having picked up a plate lunch at the shopping center. As she got into the car she explained that a young boy approached her and said he was hungry and wanted money. She felt bad, as she did not know if he was telling the truth or not. As we were sitting in the car he approached me on the drivers side.

I asked him many questions. He was 19 years old had been living with his older brother because his step dad had beat up his mom and she moved back to Washington where they were from. He chose not to go but to live with his brother. His brother was now incarcerated and so he (his name is Kawika) was living in his brother’s car.

His story was compelling, but I didn’t know this kid. But in the end my daughter and I chose to give him money for food. As we drove away we could see him entering the plate lunch place. Of course that may have been for our benefit and then he could have taken off to buy drugs or what ever. But we chose to believe him and what he did from there was his decision. Either way it was a sad comment on our Community.

Who is this Boy?

We here it everyday, our world is shrinking. And yet as a community, were are all strangers. How is it that on a trip home from Las Vegas to Honolulu, I would meet a friend from Hawaii whom I had not seen in a while and yet I don’t even know or see the people in my own neighborhood? I make it a point to talk to my neighbors. I want to know who lives around me. But it is not easy. In this day and age when people are rushing off to work two to three hours early to beat traffic coming home discombobulated after sitting in traffic forever, people don’t seem to be in a mood to talk.

Communities are not the small neighborhoods they used to be. It seems the closer the houses the more you try to hide inside yours in order to have your own space. We walk by one another as though that person is not there. When I take my walks I make it a point to greet who ever is passing by. They will make a quick and quiet salutation back but you know that not all are comfortable greeting me.

And not one will take the time to talk for a few minutes. Yes they are all in a hurry and probably don’t want to bother meeting yet another person that could cut into what little time they have.

As a child in the 50’s our neighbors knew everyone and everyone’s business.

My neighbors would have known that boy, where he belonged or what he was going through. They would have known if he was hungry or just pulling our leg.

And that nosy neighbor the one everyone complains about? Because she knows everyone’s business she would have known what and who to contact.

I’ll never have the close-knit neighborhood of yesteryear our communities have spread out to far. And how often do we lean over the fence and talk to the neighbor? For that matter how many of us even know our neighbors or even want to know them?

Would you know when strangers are checking out the house next door? Or would you even know that the house next door is even being cased?

In this small, small world we are a vast community of strangers. So how do we know when someone genuinely needs help if we are so far removed from everyone? How can we send money off to far distant lands to help other cultures and yet we can’t truly pinpoint those right around us who need help.

I know there are shelters and I also have talked to people who have lived in them and heard about their nightmare experiences. But sometimes we need to go outside and see what is happening around us and try to get to know one another, learn the names of the clerks, post office workers, and the people who walk by. Talk about what is going on around us. We need to narrow that gap so that when someone approaches us we know who he or she is.

Oh I know this is to far fetched and there are many, many factors that make this impossible but I only wish I had enough faith in Kawika’s story to have done more. I only wish that my world was smaller and that I had a nosy neighbor who could say “you know so and so’s boy is in a bad way. We should get together and help.”

It’s a sad time that I am living in when I have to worry that if I helped this boy I could be endangering myself. Unfortunately he is one neighbor I will never get to know.