Still Holding Hands, Seven Decades Later

A consciousness around loving has led me since age three. And an insight from the fifth grade has guided my life and travels with me to this day. The story is simple. I live in its teaching most days. This experience nourishes me because it feeds and guides me. I embrace the memory; it opens my heart and mind and allows me to choose growth and experience. 

When I was in the fifth grade, we sat alphabetically in rows by last name. I was a "W" and tall, so I was seated at the back of the room. Guy* should've been behind me, but he was not as tall as me, so he sat in front of my desk. Guy was a cut up -- a clown. He frequently acted silly to get attention and always succeeded. Our teacher liked him, so she put up with his antics.  One day, after the start of school, a new girl named Irene* came into class and, because she was also tall, was put between Glenn and me.

Irene did not speak. She shuffled to her seat between Guy and me with downcast eyes. She obviously did not want to be in our class at school. She was a very well-developed young woman noticeably more bodily mature than we were. She wore a skirt with unbuttoned waist and a blouse that gaped open between buttons. Her old, soiled clothes strained to hold her. She kept her head hung when the teacher questioned her and had no words in response. Her wild, uncut, uncombed curly hair obscured her lowered face. And finally, she had intense body odor that introduced her instead of words. Her scent literally seemed breath-taking.  Beyond words.

Because we were young and untaught about difficult social challenges, we did not help her adjust to the class. No one spoke to her to welcome her, including me. I did not know what to say, because I noticed how different she was, and I too, noticed her piercing odor so close to me, distracting my attention from ordinary manners. Our teacher only said her name and told her where to sit in front of me.

The first day passed. Then, on the second day, as the school bell rang to have us take our seats to begin class, Guy walked in late with a World War I gas mask hung over his face. Everyone laughed, which was his objective, and even the teacher let him take his seat without comment. But Irene noticed, immediately recognized herself as the reason for his mask,  put her head on her desk and sobbed silently. I watched from behind her as her shoulders rose and fell in obvious sadness and humiliation that slowed, but did not stop. During the regular morning break from studies, our teacher announced to the class with hostile facial expressions that Irene had head lice. She said that she needed a student to come with her to the bathroom so she could treat Irene’s hair. She asked for a volunteer as she explained that head lice were very contagious and she did not want the rest of us to take them home with us. (I distinctly remember more teacher facial disgust.) During all of this, Irene kept her head down on her desk, still quietly sobbing. No one volunteered, of course.  Certainly not Guy. The combination of having watched her sob and the felt humiliation of her being alone as the object of a gas mask attack and obvious teacher distain, landed on me with enormous force. I could barely breathe; my chest hurt and I wanted to cry and run away.  

I raised my hand to accompany the teacher and Irene. I remember I just HAD TO raise my hand.

Our teacher “yanked” (literally, she forcefully grabbed) Irene out of her seat and led both of us to the bathroom, where she “yanked” her again to the sink and began washing her hair, very briskly with disgust written all over her body and face. I did not know what to do; I just watched as I stood by immobilized, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Our teacher scrubbed and pulled and brutally washed Irene's hair. She grabbed a towel and brusquely pulled her hair through the towel to dry it as Irene winced and cried softly.  I don't remember when the medicine was applied; I could not take my eyes away from the humiliation surrounding this person I barely knew. I just knew the quiet sound of her tears. I didn't even recognize my teacher who I knew well, but could not accept as the person administering the humiliation.  As I look back, the time frame for this event seems endless; the soundtrack absent of words, but full of soft sobs and noiseless violence and disgust. I just stood there, a reluctant witness to the total opposite of compassion, though I could not have used that word at the time. Our teacher gathered things up to return to the classroom, ignoring both Irene and me. The only thing I could think to do to save both Irene and myself was to walk over to her, to take her hand, and to hold it firmly.  No words possible for me.  I just HAD TO show her somehow I heard her tears and was “with” her.

To this day, telling our story makes me cry. I remember I actually experienced a sensation in my hand that was both warm and comforting to me; I like to assume it made a difference to Irene. I know I didn't look at her because I felt I wasn't doing enough, but I do know that what I felt from her hand was an energetic response. We both stood there looking at space in front of us: Irene with her head bent, looking at the floor. I with my eyes focused on safe, empty air. I walked out first; Irene followed.

Our teacher said nothing as she left the bathroom and nothing to the class afterwards. Guy sat surrounded by unconcerned fellow classmates, safe from comment or judgment. I sat, recording all I had experienced and participated in the rest of the day, as expected by my teacher. Irene kept her head down on the desk, still quietly sobbing. 

She never returned to school. Guy stopped wearing his gas mask, his job done. Our teacher never addressed what had happened with our class at all. She never talked to me about anything that happened in the bathroom.

That incident changed my life forever from that day forward. Watching without intervening created some constructive shame which gradually unfolded into courage for me to speak before and during injustice or inhumanity.  The small, stunning energy from reaching out my hand to join Irene showed me that I could always have courage to be company for those in need, even if I couldn’t change the active power humiliation.  I grew to know that showing love could be available in ANY and ALL encounters, large and small, extraordinary and everyday mundane. AND, most importantly, the joining in love could be mutually energetic, mutually moment and life-altering. Untouchable.  Untarnishable.   Universe affecting. Contagious. Sacred to life. 

As I revisit this rememberable emergence of intentional compassion in my life, I recognize many poor, illiterate, young women -- Irene represented a group -- young people, trapped in ignorance and poverty, with no natural way out of circumstances or sufficient allies to help. She was totally alone, without the support of an institution, without family support, or societal help. It's curious that I remember the fit of her skirt as much as her face and her very curly matted light brown hair. Her skirt was too tight. The button was gaping open and it rode over what I thought at the time was a fat stomach. Looking back with my female world experienced eye, I suspect she was pregnant, because I have seen that type of stretched garment often as an adult mother-to-be caught between regular clothing and maternity clothes. And that way, she would fit the stereotype of a young woman barely past puberty who, by circumstance, found herself pregnant way too early. I suspect that the school system's truant officer found out from some report she should have been in school and made her come, his job done because she appeared one day, as law demanded.

This incident in the fifth grade was almost seven decades ago. I don't know how many of the exact details remain true to actual, but what I do remember is the humiliation that permeated the event. That strong emotion led me to reach out with one thing that would not offend my teacher. I remember a certain, compelling connection, an acknowledgment of kinship as our hands met. I knew body, mind and spirit, that personal connection had to happen and it could come through me. That reach into myself reinforced and released into me all the natural yearning I carried to help, to make things better, to participate in a kind of recovery for the world that I could not even name, to fill a space with some kind of loving action instead of being paralyzed or turning away.

This simple event gave me a baseline for action. It showed me the least that I could do in situations that offended my sense of a loving world could change both participants and could transform my thinking and action.  I could always reach out. I could connect, support, join energies. My actions could involve words and companions and eyes meeting and listening and reading and joining.  My actions could move around, explore and contemplate the creation of kinetic connection -- one human being to another and another and another. Now, in this moment, writing my story, I would call that kinetic coherence instead of compliance or connection, as I still, decades later, can continue to grow my idea of ever-expanding networks of compassionate feeling leading to compassionate thought growth and action toward creating LOVE.

I often wonder what happened to Irene, how she survived, what her life is now and how her life proceeded from our moment together. But I do know that the inside of that moment has led me forward into a rich life, that the feeling that passed between our hands that day was real and essential to my life, and that from that moment on, I would be dedicated to understanding and repeating that connection, however imperfect. 

I have lived that energetic presence wherever and whenever I can, nurturing it and growing it as the center of my life. I would call it HEART and LOVE. Irene gave me words and concepts, emotions and courage, a world to move toward creating in community together for life. She gave me a stated life intention:  To show up with an open heart, an open mind and all the love I can carry at the moment to whatever and whoever is present.

So, no matter where or who she is now, Irene lives in me. Thank you, Irene, and may LOVE walk with you.