Hope – Snail Trek Blog

Fitting In

I am not like my mother—she prayed for everything. She prayed for friends, for waiters, and for the food they brought us. For refrigerators. For roadkill.

She even prayed for parking places. When a car finally budged from its space as we circled like vultures seeking carrion, she would beam, “See? He cares!”

My prayers are more modest. I might seek divine intervention for a missing sock, a cell phone, or a shopping list gone astray in the grocery store. When I was young, I prayed for my pets—right up to the moment of death. Still, now and then, I’ve prayed for someone’s health and watched them become healthy again.

So, I was surprised to find myself—with my hand resting on the shoulder of a young man I did not know—praying aloud for him at a bus stop as passengers milled about.

I had brought my cousin to the Greyhound station so he could board a bus to take him home. We waited—pacing, standing, sitting on cold cement benches until our backsides went numb.

Two hours later, a bus finally arrived. Surely ours. But no; the driver told us my cousin’s bus had been canceled. Another one would come “in an hour or two.”

All around us, mothers changed babies’ diapers on the stone-cold benches. A grizzle-bearded gentleman used his cane to prop up his nodding head. Children overturned suitcases, which occasionally burst open in a soft explosion of clothes and toys.

As darkness approached, the replacement Greyhound bus arrived. A heavyset young man near the front of the line shuffled toward the door. The driver opened it, invited him in, and spoke with him privately. Moments later, the young man stepped back out.

After engaging him in small talk, I asked, “Why did you get on and then come right back out?”

“I was measuring,” he said plainly. “I wanted to see if I could fit in a bus seat. It’s less embarrassing to find out now than when the bus is full.”

His candor took me off guard. I searched his eyes, tucked away behind heavy cheeks.

As we talked, he began to open up. “I’ve eaten my way through my misery. My family treats me like an outcast. Eventually, I dropped out of high school. I’m barely a survivor. And that’s all I am. So, I’m leaving.”

His eyes divulged emptiness—a soul leached of hope. What remained was a broken spirit, searching for a place of healing.

When I reached for his arm, he didn’t resist, didn’t even question my intent. A tremor passed through him—and into me. What was I doing? His burden wasn’t mine. His shame, his fear—they weren’t mine to carry. And yet I couldn’t let go.

There was only one thing to do—pray.

Yet, at that moment, I shared a twinge of his fear. The bus crowd might stare. I might not fit in.

Still, I prayed.

When I opened my eyes, his face was wet with tears. He rubbed his knuckles in his eyes to clear them. Storm clouds had broken; a comforting rain had begun to fall.

And then he suddenly announced he was turning a page—away from bitterness, from anger, from self-loathing. Toward healing. Toward beginning again. After all those years, he believed that finally he, too, could be loved.

And in that moment, I learned something, too. My overweight friend and I were both out of our depth—he, for his weight, and me, for my very public prayer. Like him, I needed to risk not fitting in.

Expressing love is a splurge—an extravagant act that risks embarrassment. It’s a leap off the high dive before you’re sure you can swim.

And sometimes, by taking that one courageous step, we budge both heaven and earth.

Curtain Call

In sleep, Dad might wander a path, inhaling the fragrance of pine trees, or he might revisit familiar, cozy places he held dear. But now he was aging, and naps brought confusion instead of release. His body faltered, and he grew irritable. A uniformed nurse at the assisted-living facility stepped in to give him medication, easing his agitation. As his mind relaxed, so did his muscles. Soon, his lungs would forget to expand; finally, his heart would forget to beat.

We were still on our way to see him when the message arrived—Dad was gone. Only the night before, we had returned from visiting our daughter and her family halfway across the country. I kicked myself for poor timing: I had missed Dad’s departure from Earth by forty-five minutes.

At 106, Dad would often ask, “Why am I still here?” He had lingered on, outliving friends and family. Each time we parted, we knew it could be our last. Still, we shared a secure peace; if it were our final goodbye, neither of us would have regrets.

We cared for him during the nine years after Mom died. Many weekends meant a two-hour drive to see him, tending to his needs, followed by a weary drive home—and then preparing for another long workweek. The rhythm repeated, week after week.

During those nine years, Dad cared for us, too. His humor cleared our career-compressed fog. His devotion to beauty, art, and faith pressed us to look inward, outward, and upward. He remained delightfully quirky: every dog he greeted received a firm rumple of its nose pressed lovingly together. While he never received a nip at this greeting, the canine communion mystified both the unsuspecting dog and its surprised owner.

But eventually, like his own father’s gold pocket watch, the spring broke. No amount of winding its crown would have any effect. Its time, like Dad’s final nap in his small bedroom, had run out.

But this was not Dad’s first dance with death; it was his curtain call. Fifteen years earlier, while shopping at Costco, he left us the first time.

He had stood in the long prescription line among other shoppers, heads bowed over lists and membership cards. Suddenly, Dad simply tipped over—a toppled mannequin. Like a felled tree, without flexing to break his fall—he was dead on his feet. His heart had simply stopped, as if to say, “I’ve had enough.” Flat on his back, the fluorescent ceiling light cast a blue tint on him, contrasting the red blood draining onto the concrete floor from beneath his head.

On his way down, he had nearly struck the woman standing behind him—a providentially placed nurse who immediately began resuscitation. Then, paramedics—shopping a few aisles over—rushed over to help, trundling him into their ambulance, lights ablaze and sirens wailing.

When Dad’s head had hit the cement floor, ever the artist, he might have enjoyed a foretaste of the beauty offered by his beloved artists—Monet, Klee, and Van Gogh, ushering him into God’s ultimate glory, appearing just ahead. Earth’s painted canvas retreated behind him, while before him stretched a new, unending one.

Then came the command: “Clear!” as the ambulance team attempted resuscitation. Somewhere between Costco and Sharp Memorial Hospital, the EMT’s defibrillator jolted Dad’s heart alive.

The glorious images on the divine canvas faded from Dad’s vision. It dissolved into cold stainless steel, a vinyl gurney, and IV drips as Dad shuttled back to Earth, bouncing along in the ambulance.

Revived, he arrived back from his first death.

Dad’s later years were bookended by his two deaths—the first in Costco, into the waiting arms of a nurse and ambulance crew, the second, the curtain call, in his cozy assisted-living bedroom.

The Psalmist reminds us, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.” Certainly, Dad’s lines had fallen in pleasant places. His life’s boundaries had quietly expanded, stretching out like hidden markers beneath the snow.

My father leaves us his story, this dog-loving artist marked by a star-shaped scar on the back of his head. And he would ever encourage us—no, he would insist— that we keep asking ourselves his favorite query, “Why am I still here?”

Sculpting Granite

Terry was a slab of granite—six-foot-six and broad enough to swallow the hallway light as he approached my office door.

The Texas Rehabilitation Commission had assigned me to be his employment counselor. His diagnosis unsettled me: intermittent explosive disorder. His psychiatric and criminal records confirmed what his presence suggested—volcanic outbursts, sudden and violent.

He carried fear like a scent, the byproduct of deep, unhealed wounds. His boiling point was impossible to predict.

Counseling sessions became balancing acts. When he demanded benefits the state didn’t allow, his anger surged. I rearranged my office furniture. If his temper erupted, I needed a Terry-free escape.

As a young man, Terry had been convicted of murder; he served years in prison. Not long before becoming my client, he was released after committing another murder.

Yet here he was, looking for help.

“I was in a pawnshop when this guy pulls a gun and holds up the place. There I was—a felon—with a gun in my face. What was I gonna do? I’m not even supposed to have a gun! But instinct took over. I pulled out my hidden revolver and shot him.”

“And then?”

“I got down on the bloody floor with him. I held him in my arms … and prayed for him until he died.”

Prayed for him? I wondered if beneath that rage there might be a gentler man.

My next meeting with him ran into the evening. My co-workers had gone home. The sky had blackened. Soon his demands also turned dark and unreasonable. I pushed back as gently as I could. His brow knotted as his voice grew heavy and guttural.

Then he exploded—leaping to his feet, towering, trembling, fists clenched. I measured the distance to the door. I slid my chair back, inching toward escape.

Next came the threat.

“Yeah, you need to be afraid!” he bellowed. “Run! As fast as you can! But I’ll get you before you reach your car! You won’t make it home alive!”

He stormed out, footsteps pounding down the stairwell—the same stairs I would need to take.

I called my wife. “If I’m not home in an hour, call the police.”

I waited, then ran—three steps at a time—across the parking lot, scanning shadows. No Terry. I dove into my car, engine roaring as I tore out of the lot.

Somehow, I made it home alive.

Terry was soon ejected from the program. Eventually, a new job took me from Texas to Southern California, half a continent away. I tried to forget him, assuming he’d never find work—or that he’d killed again and was serving life, if he was alive at all.

Nearly twenty years passed.

One day, a Facebook notification popped up. I almost ignored it, but the profile photo caught me—gray hair, face like a ravine, and … was that a clerical collar? I clicked. A white square at the neck, indeed, a clerical collar.

The message read: “Hello. I am trying to locate Craig Dahlberg. He was a great blessing in helping me. Pastor Terry.”

In the photo, he held up a certificate of ordination, smiling.

Pastor Terry? Could it be?

When we connected, he told me he’d turned his life around. That he was sorry for the man he’d been, sorry for how he’d treated me. Patience, kindness, and care, he said, had eventually won him over. He’d discovered that God could love a felon, even a two-time murderer.

“I’ve changed. I went to Bible school. Now I’m a pastor, helping others change their lives. I wanted to thank you. It’s all worked out so well.”

At our very worst—when fear and fury cling to us—can even our most consequential, terrible choices be redeemed? Can the raging river of life finally deposit even the worst offenders, the most troubled souls, on the peaceful shore?

Terry’s eyes told me they can. However life had sculpted him, he eventually found the Sculptor’s sure and gentle hands.

Audacious

I stood before a small door, hinged within a massive one—both built from gnarled timber. For centuries, the large door had opened to horse-drawn wagons, heavy with farm tools, fresh vegetables, and weary laborers.

The smaller door groaned as I leaned into it, inching it open.

Inside the cavernous, windowless entry to the farmhouse, I blinked against the darkness. A single, bare bulb hung overhead, its dim light barely breaking the gloom.

I’d spent the night in my one-man tent, pitched just outside the East German border.

As dawn broke the horizon, I packed my tent into my rented Volkswagen. My Bible, wrapped in my underwear, was hidden from view—concealed from the East German guards whose concrete watchtowers loomed ahead.

A truly incoherent situation: A country in collapse, being invaded by the theater of the absurd. Like East Germany, my life’s main road had just washed out; I was searching for a new road, a new career, a new horizon.

Two guards—machine guns slung casually within reach—demanded my documentation. They studied my American passport as if I had just floated down from space. One peered at me and murmured in awe,

“Ein echter Amerikaner!”

A real American!

Then the steel gate clanked open, and they waved me through. I was in East Germany—my bag unchecked for either drugs or Bibles.

East Germany swallowed me whole—its colors drained. I had walked out of Kodachrome into black-and-white. Weeds pushed through cracked concrete on the crumbling Autobahn. East German Trabant cars coughed and sputtered; mopeds with bronchitis.

I was here on a covert operation, my own “Your-mission-Craig, should-you-decide-to-accept-it …” assignment. A map on my lap, I searched for a town called Rötha. There, I hoped to find Manfred, a man I’d never met. I was not sure he even existed.

Blacklisted by the regime for being a pastor, his mail was cut off and all contact with the West was forbidden. His friends didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Having grown up in West Germany, I spoke fluent German. So, as an American searching for Manfred, I drew less suspicion. But alone on those pitted roads, my confidence wavered.

Rötha seemed frozen in time. Bombed-out buildings leaned wearily against one another, survivors of World War II. Bullet holes still marred their bricks, untouched since the war.

Without a person or single street sign to help me, the town felt abandoned. I saw no one.

I pulled my Volkswagen into a small cobblestone square surrounded by centuries-old, thatched farmhouses.

Leaning my forehead against the steering wheel, I groaned a desperate plea: “Have I come all this way for nothing? You’ve got to help me here.” My plea sounded like the only voice in a dark and cold universe.

I stepped out of the car.

Then I saw her—a woman opening a third-floor window in one of the ancient farmhouses.

She was the first person I had seen in Rötha.

Simultaneously panicked and seizing the opportunity, I called up to her, grasping for any thread of hope.

“Kennen Sie Manfred Hoffmann?”

Do you know Manfred Hoffmann?

It was a long shot.

She froze, silent, unmoving, staring down at me, trying to make sense of what I had just asked.

Then, her face lit with shock.

“Das ist mein Mann!”

That’s my husband!

“I’ll send him right down!”

I had arrived in a ghost town, without signage or directions, searching for a man I had never met—a nearly impossible task. And the first person I encountered—was his wife.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness behind the weathered farmhouse door, a man’s face slowly emerged—wet with tears.

Then he stood still; Manfred was rooted to the stone floor, unable to move. He spoke halting German, barely able to speak through his sobs.

“I’m Manfred Hoffmann,” he said, voice catching. “I’ve prayed for someone to find me for a very long time… but I never imagined they’d come all the way from America.”

I stayed with Manfred’s family for many days. Eventually, the crumbling Autobahn led me away from Rötha. But I would never be the same.

Soon, the East German regime collapsed. After the wall fell, many letters passed between Manfred and me.

But the most enduring connection was forged that evening under the glow of a single bare bulb in a shadowed entryway.

“You’ve got to help me here,” I prayed. Or was that too visceral to be prayer? Perhaps God answers raw and audacious prayers ahead of polite and saintly ones.

Precious Years

A brother and sister, our children’s playmates, were a matched set—like miniature chess pieces—completely out of scale with other children their age. They were aging at a furious pace.

Their paper-thin skin stretched over their fragile frames. Tripping over a garden hose could be dangerous. A misdirected softball might shatter their brittle bones.

They both suffered from progeria, a rare genetic disorder that occurs in just one out of every four million births. Progeria brings stunted growth, abnormal facial features, and rapid aging. The average life expectancy is just 14.5 years.

Yet while these neighborhood children were trapped in old bodies, their spirits hadn’t gotten that message. They launched their miniature frames like carefree foals, sunlight dancing off their bald heads, their oversized eyes magnified behind thick lenses. Though their hyper-aged bodies may have been nearing the end of life, the children gleefully rode tiny bicycles down our street with the joy and abandon of most nine-year-olds.

They were the happy children. They seemed to savor every moment, free from anxiety, fully engaged in each passing day. Their joy seemed a deliberate rebellion against passing time. Though their coming years might be few, their spirits pushed progeria to the very edge of their lives.

Another image comes to mind: Judah’s King Hezekiah, sitting in the shadowed corners of his throne room. At 39, he had already lived twice as long as the expected lifespan of my young neighbors. He, too, suffered from a terminal illness—a painful, ulcerous disease. But unlike the joyful siblings, Hezekiah was consumed by despair. Despite his wealth and power, he felt abandoned and afraid.

In his desperation, Hezekiah cried out to God. And God answered, granting the king 15 more years of life. During that bonus time, he even fathered an heir to the throne.

Today, many of us enjoy an even greater bonus. With medical advances and improved living conditions, the average lifespan has climbed into the seventies—thirty years longer than that of a person in 19th-century England, and twice the years Hezekiah had been given.

Longevity is a luxury. But it’s also a test.

Will I spend this gift of time clearing e-mails, binge-watching forgettable shows, or fixating on ulcer-inducing headlines? Will I obsess over spreadsheets, hoping to avoid starvation and failing to keep up?

In contrast, I often recall the wholehearted outlook of my children’s progeria friends. Could their example teach me to invest my own years more wisely? Could I cultivate a heart that is more hopeful and grateful for the joys each day brings?

Whether we face a shortened life, a fifteen-year bonus, or a thirty-year longevity bump, one question rises above the rest:

Not “How long will I live?”

Rather, “How will I fill the time I have been given?”

Friendship Afloat

The fight was on. Rick’s fists grazed my head as a giant, feather-engorged pillow collided with my face. Feathers exploded into the air, drifting throughout the cabin. When our pillows finally ran out of feathers, we called a time-out. It was 1958; we had just met aboard the SS United States.

Steam billowed from the four turbine engines as we cruised east across the Atlantic. Ford Motor Company was transferring our fathers and moving our families to Germany. We had five days of open seas before docking in Southampton, England.

Smoke trailed behind the massive twin red, white, and blue stacks as we prowled every deck and explored the ship’s innards like giant viruses. We strained to peer into the bridge, mesmerized by its massive brass gauges and outsized levered controls.

That day in 1958, I found a new friend in a pillow fight—a friendship that, 67 years later, remains my longest-enduring bond.

The distinguished service of the SS United States expired long ago. Now a 72-year-old relic, the ship that convened my school of friendship, is being scuttled to serve as an artificial reef. Schools of fish will soon inhabit our old pillow fight venues. Stingrays might glide through the luxury ballroom, where we once stole glimpses of Steve Allen, Rita Hayworth, and the Aga Khan. Sea slugs may ooze across our dining tables. Aquatic life might gather, to be protected by the submerged swimming pool.

Friendships were simple then. Proximity was the great unifier, and shared experience outweighed any cultural or political differences. Living down the block or down a passenger ship’s shared corridor meant you were “in.” Even today, the memory of those shared moments brings the joy of genuine friendship.

But what becomes of older friendships? Do they have a shelf life, expiring like an aged maritime vessel scuttled to the ocean floor? Geographic distance, circumstance, or life-altering challenges can erode bonds. Or we may simply drift apart like melting icebergs.

New friendships are even harder to predict. They may bloom unexpectedly—sometimes forged through crisis or compressed by circumstance. Even among people with opposing perspectives, bonds can form in surprising ways.

Yet can we intentionally recreate that magic? After the uncomplicated friendships of youth, is it still possible to build deep, lasting connections?

In their duet, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers remind us, “You can’t make old friends.” Old friends accompany us on long, challenging roads. We finish each other’s thoughts, anticipate a punchline before it’s delivered, and share comfortable silences. In winter’s chill, old friends bring warm bisque to our souls.

The central question remains: What qualities are essential for lasting friendships?

In his book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks offers essential insights:

“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”

Brooks suggests friendships are not born randomly. Instead, creating high-quality relationships requires intentionality. Friendships are crafted when we model selflessness and genuine care for others. We shift our focus from “me” to “you,” providing the nutrients for new and enduring connections to flourish.

Ultimately, we become the kind of friend that others—and we ourselves—value. Just the kind of friend who is always up for a friendly pillow fight.

Still Together

As I turned into the military cemetery, I was happy to know that Wes Dahlberg, my dad, and my mother, Dee, would finally rest together.

Their cremated remains sat side-by-side in my car’s back seat. Dad’s brass and mother- of-pearl cremation urn gleamed like a new sculpture. My mother’s identical urn showed nine years of tarnish as it awaited my father’s remains. All was now ready for their burials.

Inside the glass welcoming room, the muted military décor celebrated the service of those buried here. The receptionist sported an irreverent shock of fluorescent pink hair, a comedic contrast against drab military hues and the respectful displays of flags and military insignia.

He ushered me into the next room to complete the burial forms. “Is there anything I can do for you? Water? Soda? A candy bar? Goodness, I’m sorry for the long delay! You’ve been so understanding! You’ve made my day!”

Suddenly, I heard two familiar, though dead, voices. Like the cemetery voices in Thornton Wilder’s play (and movie), Our Town.

First, I heard my dad say: “Wow! Look at that hair! A beautiful shade, but perhaps it needs a bit more purple!” Dad loved extravagance and color.

Then, Mother’s voice: “Oh! How wonderful! We’ve made his day! And he is so patient and so kind to us! Let’s thank the Lord for him. Who wants to pray?” Dee Dahlberg always saw the best in everyone.

Before any of us could entreat the Lord’s blessing, Kyle, the attendant, walked in from his tidy office, dressed in suit and tie, administrative duties in hand. Kyle’s Louisiana accent graced his instructions.

As we chatted about his Louisiana roots after the service, Kyle admitted they could not even consider buying a home in California. Maybe he should have stayed in the South, he pondered aloud. We could see it had been a tough slog.

“Poor man!” exclaimed Mother. “With a family to raise! Let’s give him a little offering!”

“Louisiana,” Dad chimed in. “What a place! The architecture is just … odd. Half French, half Southern Colonial, and half … who knows what! I’m glad we’re being buried in California!”

Finally, at the burial site, the gravedigger met us. Ricky, a grinning, enthusiastic, and energetic man, seemed unbowed by his somber responsibilities.

“I love my job!” Ricky said. Even after digging war veterans’ graves for most of his life, he still loved it. “These are war veterans, and I’m the last person who gets to honor our heroes.”

Upon discovering Dad was 106 years old, he stood erect. His face morphed from joyous to resolute.

“A hundred and six years old? I never buried nobody that old! No, sir! Wow, what a life! What an honor!”

He gently placed Mom and Dad’s urns into plastic bags, and then into the holes we watched him dig. Then he invited me to take a photograph.

“The headstones will be dug into the soil exactly 26 inches deep,” Ricky explained. They’ll arrive in a couple of months.”

“Hey,” Dad piped up, “What’s going to be inscribed on my headstone?” Ever the lifelong artist, we had expected his curiosity and wanted to please him.

I answered, “He Discovered God’s Beauty in All Things.”

“I love that,” he choked. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“What about mine?” Mother asked.

“Yours will say, ‘Loved God, Loved Others, Finished the Race.’”

“I did, you know! I really did love everyone. I sure tried to!”

“I know, Mom,” I assured her. “You did a great job.”

“One more thing,” she added. “Before you leave, could you place some Gospel tracts around the headstones of our new neighbors? We want them to know we’re all in this together.”

Who Does That Sort of Thing?

She had been lying in wait for me. Lurching from her seat half a train car away, an elderly woman flailed her arms to get my attention. This was not typical behavior in my adopted German homeland.

“Junger Mann, junger Mann, ich habe ein Geschenk für dich!” My brain’s translation center kicked into high gear—Young man, young man, I have a present for you. She waved an object above her silver hair. What? This woman had a gift for me, an eleven-year-old kid she doesn’t even know?

Trying to ignore her, I stared out the commuter train window. Then I heard her second summons. As I cautiously peered her way, she waved a brown leather satchel over her head. Pointing first to the satchel, then to me, back and forth in pantomime, her arms beckoned with the precision of a German cuckoo clock.

Working her way through the train car, she finally reached me, eager and wide-eyed, like a fish jerked from the water. In her hands was a brand-new old-school style backpack, hard leather with rounded ends.

Apparently, this was not the first time she had spotted me. As an American student living in Germany, my too-short Levis sprouted white socks and tennies. I carried my schoolbooks the American cool-kid way, the stack of books and notebooks braced on my left hip. Looseleaf papers belched from wounded binders. Respectful German children carried their schoolbooks in tidy backpacks worthy of teachers‘ inspections. Not me, a proud über-cool Amerikaner. It was hard to miss me.

She must have thought, Next time I see him, I’ll give him a new backpack…this impoverished junger Mann needs one!

Embarrassed by the kindness, I sputtered a weak “Vielen Dank,“ (“Thank you”) in rudimentary German. I exited the train one stop early, choosing to walk the rest of the way.

I can only guess how many train excursions she must have taken, each time carrying the backpack with her, hoping to spot me again. Selfless and caring toward someone she didn’t even know.

Perhaps she had been there all along. How long had she been waiting for me?

My brain fumbled. “Who does that sort of thing?”

How do you thank someone for a random act of compassion when she leaves no address, no phone number?

Our instincts for reciprocity urge us to repay acts of kindness. Or we may concoct a “pay it forward” plan.

But I learned three things about the spirit of generosity from my Commuter-Train-Riding Backpack-carrying friend. She caught something better, something higher:

1. Listen for the Whisper of Opportunity. After a mighty wind, an earthquake, and fire, God spoke to the prophet Elijah in a whisper. A micro-Voice, the Spirit, reaches into our souls. Like a pilot light, it is ever ready to ignite. A gentle sound or a fleeting image might grip our attention; we spot the need. Ignore lethargy and embarrassment. Respond; the wild and mysterious chase is on.

2. Wait for the Message. What is that gentle voice telling us to do? Follow its bread crumbs through the forest. How should we meet the need? Like the Nike basketball slogan, “Just do it.” Does the solution appear impractical, untimely, or awkward? Just do it. That courageous Backpack Lady on a mission “just did it.”

3. Resist Recognition. Afterwards—be unobtrusive, silent as slipping an overdue bill into a mail slot. Don’t talk about the secret mission. Just listen. The next whisper may already be on its way.

It has now been many decades since I encountered that lady on the train. Yet whenever I hear the clickity-clack of train tracks, I see a compassionate shotgun-riding, backpack-toting, silver-haired angel waving a book bag over her head.

And still I wonder, “Who does that sort of thing?” But then I face the real question: How can I be more like her?

What We Leave Behind

My curled fingers held one drinking glass and grasped the rim of another. The other hand clenched a used Kleenex tissue and half a dozen Lego bricks. As I left the living room, I placed the drinking glasses in the kitchen sink. Down the hall in my room, I tossed the Legos into their bin and flicked the sticky Kleenex into my bedroom trashcan.

In our house, we exited a room with religious fervor. My mother’s directive was clear: Never leave a room empty-handed. Her decree had sound roots. Hands, she believed, were God’s perfect tool. Their five-fingered design could manage a vast array of objects. As we devoted our hands in unity of purpose, our family could keep the house tidy.

If Mother suspected a protocol violation, her raised voice echoed, “Your hands aren’t empty, are they?” Alerted, I would lunge for a mislaid comic book or snatch an out-of-place plastic model airplane, jam them into my fists and announce, “Oh, no! My hands are full!” Disregarding the ordinance would earn a volley to “tidy up!”—not only the offending room, but the entire house.

Mom, the original efficiency expert, is gone. Her voice now directs angelic hosts in orderly discharge of their heavenly duties. Even today, upon leaving a room, those long-ago adolescent etched-in habits send my empty hands a-twitching—why are my hands empty?

Now, the prevailing winds of age have re-directed me. I’ve grown fond of a newer, contrarian urge. Instead of my take-it-with-me instincts, I now ask myself: “What can I leave behind?” Let me explain.

A squat, thickset man, stooped, chin implanted into his chest, shuffled into the jammed outpatient surgery waiting room. Each movement declared his obvious pain. The other patients in the room monitored him, hoping he would pass them by.

Groaning and perspiring, he paused, rotated like shawarma on a rotisserie, and lowered himself into the chair next to me. The cushion blurted a flatulent protest. Overflowing the chair, his left shoulder leaned into me, his arm draped across mine. Face down, his head rested upon his hands, which rested on his cane. He panted from the exertion of walking. Both his knees bore the heavy scars of replacement surgery. I felt trapped.

Too quickly contemplating how to break the uneasy silence, I blurted, “Hi, what are you here for?” Good grief! You don’t ask that of a man, hobbled with pain, in a medical waiting room! Just shut up!

Head still lowered and resting on his hands, he groaned, “I’m John. I have, um, degenerative disk disease. Terrible pain. Runs the whole length of my back.” He regained his breath and muttered, “Every day, I’m in agony. The pain never lets me go.” He seemed as relieved as I did at the broken silence. “What about you?” he asked, forgiving of my incursion.

Me? His response set me on my heels. I explained I was not a patient, but was here with my wife. We began comparing medical notes. Gradually, we shifted into another far smoother conversational gear. His face, now off his hands and cane, carried a smile. We shared a chuckle together, and then another. We teased. We taunted. We cajoled. Ignoring unease, we pushed back against our differences, away from our discomfort. We made room for one another.

Soon enough, a nurse whisked John down the hallway in a wheelchair. His empty chair’s vinyl seat cushion re-inflated. Mother would have been proud of his departure’s tidiness; nothing left behind.

Or was there, indeed, something he left behind?

After John left, a profound stillness followed. But in the stillness, there was no emptiness. Something different and fresh lingered—the gifts that John left behind. The gift of a welcoming spirit. A gift of grace. Unexpected joy.

And he left behind a question for me to consider. Which is more important—what we take away with us, or what we leave behind for others?

Little Slivers

An army of California freeway motorcyclists, the “lane splitters,” legally ride the no-man’s-land between lanes. When motorists encounter a Harley on the lane-that-is-no-lane, they may suffer violently erupting blood pressure and heartbeats outpacing those of a guinea pig.

A Harley can pump out 120 decibels, enough untamed quaking to redirect the veins in an eyeball. And the heart-stopping noise and sheer shock of an unexpected motorcyclist blasting on slivers of highway, mere inches away, can generate PTSD symptoms.

Tiny slivers can draw disproportionate attention. Take my left big toe. The toenail’s edge, a tiny sliver, grows crooked and inward. Only a sculptor could appreciate the nail’s insidious geometric angle. This minuscule anatomical anomaly, doubtless the vestige of an ancestor’s aberrant DNA, creates piercing pain. The throbbing torment rivals the earsplitting Harley gobbling up its sliver of freeway.

Other kinds of slivers carve consequential geopolitical landscapes. The city of Kaliningrad lies 412 miles westward from the rest of Russia, a vestige of World War II politics. It is an isolated political sliver encircled by other countries. The Suez Canal is another geographical sliver. That tiny navigable sliver eliminates long voyages around the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The canal reduces the journey by 5,500 nautical miles, or 220 fewer days at sea. The Panama Canal, another watery sliver, saves 8,000 nautical miles for ships sailing between the east and west coasts of the United States.

Our appreciation of, or annoyance at, slivers can play into our personal aspirations. We are hard-boiled in a pot of anti-sliver diatribe. To carve out a well-lived life, we are coached to create outsized achievements. Slivers be damned! We can become whatever we may dream, pole-vaulting over monstrous obstacles in our way. We measure our worth by powering our ambitions up the steepest inclines.

There must be a better way forward, a counterpunch to the gold-medal worthy mandates of a bigger, better, faster world. Have we overlooked the unnoticed, shadowed backwaters concealing Little Slivers of a different scale?

The July 19, 2024 issue of The New York Times carries an article about a tribe, the Maduro people, living deep in the vast expanse of the Amazon rain forest. This year, their tribal meetings would be held in a village 13 miles distant, beyond thick forest, logs, and streams. Attending the meeting would be a near-impossibility for the tribe’s oldest member. She had lost track of her age, but it’s somewhere between 106 and 120. Despite having never worn shoes, and refusing to do so, she vowed to make the trek.

We are brought low or grow tall depending on our navigation of the challenges in our path. Only the old woman’s son could create the way forward for her. Hoisting his mother up and onto his back, he fashioned a strip of fabric across his forehead for his mother to hang on to. Barefoot and dangling on his back like a baby opossum, the aged mother held on for the entire 13-mile trek. All the while, her son’s machete slashed and stabbed at the dense undergrowth, carving a Little Sliver, a way forward, a path of hope in the wilderness.

Little Slivers come in many wrappings. They may be a highway for audacious Harley motorcyclists. But when laid out upon the globe, Little Slivers can reshape a map. They can also create outsized consternation and suffering—the stabbing pain of a toenail or the anguish of a broken dream.

And there are the undervalued Little Slivers, the hopes like those within an aged woman. They remain unnoticed and little regarded except by another watchful, caring person. By lifting those precious slivers onto our backs and carrying them within our hearts, we may offer a hopeful way forward. When their sacrifice truly becomes ours—a lasting burden embedded within our own hearts—we may attain a new and hopeful Little Sliver for our own future.