his name is David

his name is David. i was a few minutes early for our meeting, most certainly due to the nerves scurrying around like mice in the pit of my stomach. standing in the lobby of the public library, i watched the headlights of countless cars pull into the parking lot and with each pair my stomach sank a little further. quiet visitations of self doubt, i’m sure, given the task i was about to take on in less than 10 minutes. i noticed him jogging towards me with his work coat held over his head to shield the April rain, and then he stopped briefly, took out a tiny piece of paper and scanned it. my name. i bet he forgot my name, and he was checking where he had written it down so he could appropriately address me. seeing that, i recalled him saying he had a horrible time remembering names. i thought it extremely ironic that a man who has difficulty reading depends upon writing down the details of his life just to keep them clearly aligned in his mind. to think that a sense of security can come in something as small as 2x3 sheets of worn, white paper. i suppose we take it wherever we can get it. i took in a deep “now or never” breath as he approached me and we both smiled knowingly – for those two smiles were for certain tiny invitations into the most vulnerable moments of the time we will spend together over the next few weeks. once inside the library, he said he had already gone by earlier that day and reserved a tutoring room for us that would keep us from disturbing the other library-goers. an act that told me he was just as nervous about this endeavor as i was. more accurately i knew it was yet another way to shield the secret of his disability he has gotten so used to keeping hidden from the outside world. in just an instant, the walls of that tiny sound-proof room became the boundaries within which he would trust me. in both of our meetings so far, i’ve noticed he smells of the musty basements and crevices he services daily as a plumber, wearing the grind of his trade in the scent on his skin. his hands, too, are as calloused with the work as i would have imagined them to be. he began tracing each word with his soiled index finger in a determined effort equal to that of a school kid reading his first book. yet he is in his late 40’s, i am most certain. for the next hour and a half he would tentatively stumble across consonant sounds and double letters as if he just met them all for the first time. when he speaks, he tilts his head slightly to the left and closes his eyes in what looks like two squinting slants, for he knows that in them i will detect his insecurity. the very act of closing them a safe harbor of protection. so i smile warmly back in his direction, and will continue to do so as many times as needed as assurance that i, too, am a safe harbor. as we were leaving, he said he had lost my phone number, so he pulled out that same square sheet of paper from his pocket i had seen earlier, my theory confirmed. under the name he had already written down for me, he scribbled each number with purposed care and tucked the square back inside his coat with the other life nuggets. protection yet again. with a simple "see you thursday?", i sent him back out into the daylight except that now i felt more connection and responsibility for what he would find while out there.

his name is David. and he does not know that the letters "sch" in the word schedule sound like a "k" when said aloud. he does not know that i will feel a loss in only a month’s time when he moves to Colorado and i can no longer see his progress. i will be left to wonder if i have helped this man navigate his world with a little more ease than he had before, but i will never know for sure.

and he does not know that this experience, that he, will change me. the truth, rather, is that changed and humbled i already am. and so we begin.