Patterns: Volunteer Efforts
“You look tired.”
I am; “I think we all just woke up.” I muster a wink pressing my mouth into a half smile. I didn’t look in the mirror before leaving the house.
“That night went fast.”
Tell me about it. It’s daylight savings spring forward Sunday at 6:00 AM and I’m at waiting for my carload to gather so we can get out of this overly lit church gym and into the dim, warm car. I turn on the seat heaters and classical music to make it extra delicious. Or to distract myself from the sometimes odor of unwashed bodies.
My small town has an interfaith rotating shelter in the wet winter months. Once a week- usually Sundays- I drive a few carloads of people from the hosting church to the Jack-in-the Box downtown to wait out the darkness with a cup of coffee or to collect their bicycles from the intake center at yet another church.
It’s a very small thing. I don’t tell people unless they ask. It’s completely out of my comfort zone. (Also the reason I do it). I fear that the guests/vagrants/homeless- what do I call them without sounding judgemental- judge me. My heated seats, the trunk that only closes with a button, my lot in life against theirs. Writing this out, I know this is flipped. They are the ones who are judged the most- their unwashed bodies, petitions for charity, the tumble of choices or circumstance that have brought them to a cot in a church gym and living out of a duffle bag. I’m almost thankful and always humored when I look so bleary-eyed and sloppy in my leggings and oversized sweater I slept in that I’m mistaken as someone needing a ride.
I try to make conversation. Sometimes people talk and give up part of their stories. Former university professors, veterans, chronically ill. A 3-month old they get to see this morning at 10. I listen and let them switch the radio. I can’t shift anything, but I drive, hoping that for those few minutes they are comfortable and heard.
Sara Downey, elderly and elegant: tidy hair, turquoise knit scarf, and handbag, says nothing until we arrive at intake. Then confusedly asks where she goes inside? There isn’t anything. The day shelter is on H street and the library doesn’t open until 1 on Sunday. She reminds me of my grandma. Another passenger, who made me laugh on the ride over, talking 80s music with me and compiling a best-of list of Black Sabbath music to win me over to his favorite asks for money. I suck air. I want to. I’ve certainly given 50 cents for lesser entertainment. As volunteers we’ve been told not to- I surprise myself with how fast I lie. And hate it.
Though I’m supposed to stick to the 2 designated destinations, Sara is still standing on the wet pavement baffled. She reminds me of my grandma. I load her life in a duffle bag back into my car and drive on. I can’t leave her here with the bag she can’t even lift.
The shelter with bunks, food, and hot showers isn’t open yet. It’s raining. I tell her it will open soon and she can wait on the porch and pull out the bag. She whimpers, and mumbles about her illness and a mess of troubles I can’t translate: a surgery and how she’ll get pneumonia and can’t be out. I believe her. She reminds me of my grandma. I sit in the car, she stands on the porch, and I call the only people I know who could maybe help her get some help. I’m fumbling. I see her look up to the clouds with far more desperation and do the same.
No one has answers and instead tells me who they will relay the urgency to. In the end I’m back at Jack-in-the-Box rummaging a few dollars from my wallet, telling her to buy coffee and stay warm and hoping the man on the other end of the line, or the workers and Jack-in-the-Box that know my passengers well will help with the handoff. I can’t change anything. But the bleary eyes I started my morning with have sobered. I just don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t. But I’ll wake up early again to stumble in the dark to help in the smallest way again.
I drive home with my heated seat, classical music, and home to my house as the sun is coming up uncertain but thankful for it. I’d like to tell my grandma, but I don’t know how to put it all to words nor do I want to have anyone try to tie a bow on it, praise me, or say I was wrong or right or it’s not my responsibility. It’s just there; a handoff to God on this rainy morning.
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