The Face of Economic Upheaval

I've been in Boston at meetings and yesterday, while waiting for the Commuter Rail to take me to visit my college-aged daughter, I met up with two people. The first was a young man, maybe 22 or so, who slightly frenzied, came up to me and asked me for a dollar so that he could get to Worcester. On Saturdays, the trains only run hourly, and we had about fifteen minutes left. At first I refused. I was alone in a stairway leading to the platform and didn't want to open my wallet in front of him. Who knows. But after he went through the door onto the platform, I took out a dollar and went to find him. He was asking everyone.

I came back to the stairway to get out of the wind and noise. The young man returned and told me that it had been his intention to get everyone on the platform to give him just a dollar, not a big contribution, so that he would have the $6.75 needed for the train fare. A woman, who turned out to be 49, who had two small children with her, gave him some coins. I threw in the remainder. He thanked us genuinely. Something important was in Worcester.

The other woman and I noted that at least we knew he was using the money for train fare and nothing else. And then our conversation began. It turns out that she is the grandmother of the two children--a boy in kindergarten and a girl in first grade. Her daughter and husband lost their jobs, then their home, and she took them in. They are trying to keep their lives together. And suddenly at the age of 49, she is in charge of two young children once again.

She was exhausted, so I had the children sit with me on the train so that she could rest. They were a handful, vying for my attention and approval.

Her daughter would have become homeless if not for having the opportunity to move back in with her own mother. Although the little girl told me that her new school wasn't as good as her old one, at least this family had the option of extending. Many families don't. And that's what my new friend and I spoke about. The economic hardship of this failed economy took on a face yesterday: a young man desperate to get to Worcester and a mother helping her adult daughter.

Will the stimulus package work? I don't know, and frankly, I don't think anyone knows. But we can help: we can open our wallets, we can open our homes, we can open our hearts. Because it's up to us, creating communities that care.