Never Alone

The drive from my little apartment in North Miami to the University of Miami Hospital was one I looked forward to every week. When you follow the oceanside route, AIA, the commute takes twice as long than simply hopping on the freeway. Yet the extra time was always worth it for me. The salt thick air mixed the mouth-watering scents of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes. Well, you just don’t pass on that unless you just have to. I gave up bacon a while back but never agreed to stop inhaling the stuff. A quick stop along the way to pick up a Cuban coffee to go set up the perfect drive that morning. It was 2013. A time in my life when being on my own left me unsure and floundering and feeling very alone. But these lovely drives helped. So did the scent of the ocean. And so did my work.

I was working on the University of Miami Hospital campus. It was my last day of work before my move from Florida back home to Colorado, so after my morning shift, I celebrated by enjoying my favorite lunchtime routine just once more. I picked up a fresh homemade vegetable soup and a warm corn muffin from my favorite campus café. I was glad to see that my favorite bench in one of the many hospital courtyards was available. October in Florida was glorious and the sun on my back felt just right. A slight breeze rustled a nearby palm tree. The air smelled wet, even here, miles from the ocean. I relaxed into the familiar. Doctors and nurses and hospital personnel conversing in small groups at the cement lunch tables.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, a figure came into view. Not so familiar and completely out of place. It was his stride that caught my attention at first, a leaning forward, full speed ahead stance, but with a slight limp. It was only as he came into clearer view that I could make out his features.

He was a tall guy as guys go, light brown creamy colored skin, red hair, tight curls. He wore a wrinkled white T-shirt and dark green sweatpants. Under his arm, a clear plastic, seemingly hospital issued bag with additional clothing items inside, not sure what else. He wore no shoes. Instead, just socks. The hospital type, light blue footies, the ones that usually have grippers on the bottom.

I wondered where the heck he was going. Had he been discharged or had he just walked out on his own? I thought I might intervene. Ask him myself or bring him to the attention of one of the many hospital staff walking past. No one else seemed to notice him, or if anyone did, no one seemed concerned. I hesitated. If people trained as hospital personnel didn’t seem to care or to be worried, it didn’t seem to be my place, a teacher at the early childhood center there, to intervene.

Besides, I had finished my soup and was ready to move to the courtyard across the campus, my favorite spot to enjoy my dessert. The man disappeared from view.

I took the winding brick walkway leading to my spot under an amazing cypress tree in front of the Cancer Treatment Center. Even though it was still balmy in Miami in October, the Cypress is one tree that loses its thin needle-like leaves early in the season. I watched as the slightest of breezes peeled the first autumn leaves from the tree. The corn muffin was still a little warm. I pulled off the crispy top first and dug in, fingers first. Peering over the muffin top, I caught sight of him again. Same tall guy, still carrying the same stuff, wearing the same socks, only this time, he was pushing on in the opposite direction from where he had been headed before.

He really did seem lost. Yet, there they were, a different set of doctors and nurses, apparently in their own worlds. I watched the guy for a minute, to see if he might ask for directions. He didn’t, but he had stopped walking for a moment, perhaps to rest. There seemed no question to me now—he was be lost. I approached him to see if I might help.

It was a moment in time. I took a moment, too, just like him. Not to rest, but to decide again. I saw a playback of myself, somewhere in my own mind, watching myself let him just walk on by, minding my own business like everybody else. My mind said that he wasn’t my problem. That someone else would handle it. I would be late for an upcoming after lunch presentation. I wanted to finish my muffin. Then, I woke up from my own thoughts, afraid that he might be gone again. But there he stood, in the middle of the parking lot, dazed.

With resolve I approached him. Be careful. Are you crazy? Don’t talk to strangers. How many women are murdered in Miami every year? At that time 50 or so I think. So as this guy just stood there in the middle of the parking lot, I approached 2 ladies in blue scrubs first and pointed him out, asking if they knew him or if he might be in trouble. They eked out a no and a head shake before going back to their conversation.

So, I walked up to him, this guy on the wrinkled white tee and green sweatpants. I became a little self-conscious and felt way overdressed in my off-white suit and gold jewelry, presentation ready.

Hi. I greeted him. He was hanging his head and so I had to bend down a bit in order to make eye contact.

“Hi. Are you looking for someone or headed somewhere?”

He responded. Yes. He was lost.

“Well, I just left the University of Miami Mental Health, and they told me to go to Jackson Mental Health across the street, but I can’t find it and my feet hurt from walking in these.”

He looked down at his stocking feet.

“Well, how about we go inside? I pointed toward the Cancer Center lobby. “Let’s ask security. Maybe someone can give us directions or even give you a ride.”

He smiled and began to follow me. He said his name was Joshua.

Then, all of a sudden, he wasn’t close beside me anymore.

He stood curbside. At least he was out of the line of traffic. I was ready to tell him that I’d go inside to get some help, but he came up to me instead and took my hand. Instead of being startled or uncomfortable, I just felt glad to be there.

“I can sing, too, ya know!”

As random as that, looking me straight in the eye with conviction, and maybe a little belligerent, too. The odd thing was, he had emphasized the word I, clearly comparing himself to someone else. Perhaps the men from my past who could sing. Very, very well.

A chill of energy moved through me, unsure of what was happening exactly. It was like I was watching some unfolding mystery in someone else’s movie, glued to my chair. But this movie was all mine. Mine and Joshua’s.

“What do you want to hear?” he wanted to know.

“What would you like to sing?” was my response.

And so it began. There we were, standing together, face to face, holding hands, at the entrance of a busy hospital lobby. Yet the people and the traffic completely disappeared for me. It was just me and Joshua. Joshua began to sing. He was good, too. Really, really good. A deep, resonant Lou Rawls kinda voice.

“ There’s a spark of magic in your eyes, Candyland appears each time you smile, Never thought that fairy tales came true, But they come true when I’m near you, You’re a genie in disguise, Full of wonder and surprise,”

At that point holding his hands now, too and looking into his eyes, bright green and hypnotic, I recognized he tune and joined in.

“Betcha by golly wow. You’re the one that I’ve been waiting for forever. And ever will my love for you keep growin’ strong. Keep growin’ strong.’

Joshua sang two more songs as we stood there. Something I didn’t recognize.

“You think he loves you but he don’t. You think he’ll be there, but he won’t.”

Then, he finished off with Frank Sinatra’s My Way.

“The record shows, I took the blows and did it my way.”

Joshua sang and my tears fell softly. “And now the end is near, so I must face the final curtain.”

“I can see this touches you,” he observed.

This moment, suspended in time I knew would stay with me forever. Joshua was an angel. A messenger. From where I could not yet discern. Perhaps someday I would know. But he was sent just for me. I was not there to help him. He was there to help me. I had something. I had someone. I had Joshua. I was not alone.

The funny thing was, I was not alarmed. I was not uncomfortable. I was not self-conscious. The rest of the world had disappeared. I just let him sing. I let him move me to tears and beyond. And when he was finished, Joshua disappeared. Not physically. But into a quiet recess of his own mind, I suppose. Outwardly he became catatonic. Unresponsive.

I kept one of his hands in mine, first guiding him into the Cancer Center with me. No one there could help. So I guided him along the walkway that led us across the street to where I remembered Jackson Mental Health was located. I spoke softly, not caring if he responded. Just apologizing that I had failed to find him a ride and acknowledging how much more his feet must hurt by now. Once inside the lobby, Joshua let go of my hand. and on his own took a seat among the others waiting.

I was still tearful and out of breath as I approached the receptionist. I couldn’t just leave him there. Suddenly, I wasn’t at all sure that anyone else would see him at all.

“Uhhh, excuse me. Do you see that gentleman over there with the red hair?”

She responded. "Yes…”

That was a relief. At first. She saw him, too. Joshua was real, but what did that matter? Now he was gone. My relief left me, replaced with a deep heartache.

I explained to the receptionist that Joshua had been wandering the medical campus for over an hour in his stocking feet, having been released from University of Miami Mental Health and nobody seemed to notice. I heard the panic in my own voice so I was certain she must have heard it, too. She was a very sweet woman and promised me she would look after him. She was busy, I could tell, and the waiting room was noisy and full, but she seemed to sense that I was really concerned. I went back to check in with Joshua--to see if he was ok if I left him. No response.

Reluctantly, I left the building, heading back to where I was scheduled to speak. I was very late. Dozens of special education teachers waiting for me to show up. And the Center Director. Usually prompt and dependable, I didn’t care. I began my talk and made a perfunctory apology for my tardiness, realizing that my face was probably still streaked with tears. I didn’t care about that, either.

Over the next few hours, days, months and years, I would catch myself running that movie, Joshua’s and mine, over and over in my head. I longed to hear his voice again. To see his face. I wondered where he was and if he was ok.

I wondered—what if I had not noticed that curious figure wandering the hospital campus. What if I had moved on to my presentation, unwilling to be late. And going forward, would I choose to remember to slow down and notice? What beautiful gifts are we missing every day in blindness and haste?