Maynard Dixon painted "Forgotten Man" in 1934 during the Great Depression. There are so many elements of this painting that captivate me, but this isn't an art lesson.
In the past week I've seen three people looking this way. Dejected, despairing, weary, hopeless, alone, heavy with sadness and worry while the world rushes past them busy and unaware.
First it was one of my good teacher friends who walked into the library last week, and from across the room I knew immediately that something had changed her. Her mom died this summer. She took her to the hospital in July with stomach pains, learned it was cancer, and her mom never came home. She died 25 days later. My friend said, "I am not okay. I'm not going to be okay. Nothing prepared me for losing my mom. I wasn't ready. I miss her so much, every day. I don't know how I can teach the rest of this year. I'm so worn out and sad, and I can't get over it."
Saturday I drove with a friend a few hours away to visit another friend diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in July. This friend is not okay. She's not going to be okay. Nothing prepared her for this. She's not ready. She doesn't know how she can go on. She's worn out and sad. There is no happy present or future for her. We sat on her deck for a few hours, listening to her talk about all the difficult and sad challenges in every area of her life. It was a contrast of beautiful weather with sunshine lighting upon her head and shoulders, against shadows and sickness and a frail body that weighs less than 100 pounds now. She looked just like the "Forgotten Man"... weary, downtrodden, in pain, hopeless, suffering. I thought of the unfairness of everyone else having a normal beautiful Saturday, active and busy and healthy while our friend suffers.
Today it was another teacher friend. Three of us were proctoring in her grade. While two proctors were in her room helping the students get started, she stepped into the hall and took a phone call from her dad. She came running towards me, sobbing and wailing loudly. She could barely get the words out, "Please go to my room and watch my kids! I have to go!" I will never forget that sob and the devastated, pleading look on her face as tears began running down her face. She stumbled away and I full out ran to her room as fast as I could because I didn't know what was going on yet. One of us stayed in her classroom until another teacher came to take over for the rest of the day, one of us went with her to another empty classroom to hug her and call other staff to assist, and one of us continued proctoring in the other classrooms. Her sister died unexpectedly in her sleep.
I can't stop thinking about these three friends, about others I know who are in the middle of extremely hard challenges, about suffering, about the importance of noticing others and sitting with them in their sorrows so they aren't alone like this Forgotten Man.
