Cruel kindness on a leafy lane

I was taking a very short break before my final ascent up a steep leafy lane, with weights around my ankles and wrists adding up to over 5 kilos in total, when an old man stopped to ask me how those weights worked.

Although he looked very frail, a sparkle was still illuminating his eyes. I smiled and approaching him I undid my weights to show him their mechanism. He soon told me all about his daily exercise routine and how that kept him in a decent shape despite the cancer eating him away; how lonely he was and how not even his church friends cared enough to visit him occasionally; how he kept himself busy by collecting electrical refuse for a charity; how his memory was failing him and he couldn’t read books anymore (although he wasn’t really an avid reader anyway).

He did ask me a question or two about me but I was acutely aware of his much greater need to talk and be heard so I kept my answers brief, feeling happy when he used them as segue to tell me about himself.

While he was talking I often drifted off though, keen to observe myself instead, curious about my reactions to him. I was humbled, touched, deeply saddened and felt myself welling up a couple of times. His loneliness was so palpable and his yearning for human contact almost unbearable. I was aware that what I was giving him was not a great deal to me but awfully precious to him — time and attention — and soon I was feeling a dread creep over me. I could break his heart by simply ending our conversation.

Realising this terrible imbalance of power, I felt so uncomfortable that I started to edge away from him, busying myself with tying the weights back onto my wrists, hoping to end this encounter as gently as possible.

Thankfully, I thought, he appreciated what I was trying to do and went along with it. However, as we were parting he asked me one more question: would I mind helping him raise money for his charity? He then continued to quickly inform me about how I won’t have to do much, just leave used foil and electrical stuff outside my house and how he’d pick it up, how he’ll send me references so I know it’s a legitimate charity and how grateful he’ll be to me. Feeling cornered, I said ‘yes’ and before I knew it, I was giving him my address.

I got in my car and as I sped off, I grew uneasy. I just gave my home address to a total stranger! A loner. A disgruntled man, let down by and deeply disappointed with his fellow humans. All I could think of to console myself was that even if he was criminally inclined he was too frail to be really feared — I could overpower him easily if ever he posed a risk to my safety.

After this initial assault of paranoia, I settled into a more pragmatic mood.

I will honour my promise and help him with his charity collections, but it’ll be a one off. I cannot — nor do I wish to — offer him more. Also, I will stop using that leafy lane for awhile for my daily exercise routine.

I waited anxiously for his reference letter which arrived two days after our encounter — he dropped it off in person. He didn’t ring a bell which was a huge relief although it made me feel pathetic for having all those paranoid thoughts.

His letter was crushing. It was written by an unsteady frail hand in an old fashioned handwriting telling me how talking to another human being gave him hope again and a new spring in his step. He also thanked me for my time and for listening to him: he called me a “very nice and kind lady”. I was distraught. I felt I was the ugliest soul in the world. I wished, oh I wished so much in that brief moment that I could give him everything he needed — company, occasional visit, listening ear, compassion. But I knew better. I knew I didn’t want to. As my heart ached with sadness and pounded with guilt, my resolve grew — I had to dispel any hope he may have had of our continuing acquaintance.

I wrote him a kind enough but very short and completely unambiguous letter of my one-off intention to help him with his charity and instructions for him to collect the goods. I did as I promised and he collected as he promised. We never met again, nor exchange any more letters.

I did see him a few weeks later outside his house attending to his hedge. He looked as healthy as last and only time I spoke to him, I thought to myself with great relief.

* * * * * *

I still wonder if I could have done anything differently. More kindly.

Maybe I should have been considerably less accommodating and encouraging when he first approached me?

But, at the time, I could give him what he needed. In fact, I was only too happy to oblige. So, not to give him what came to me so easily seemed to be to me unkind…..

If only he could have left it at that…if only he could have been happy with the moment not wishing to recreate it…

As for me, maybe I could have acted on my knowledge that people do want more of what they like — I know I do. But that would have felt like I was patronising him — as if he was a child and I, an adult, knew better what was good for him.

But that just wasn’t me.

It goes against my sense of right and wrong.

We are all free to make our own decisions and choices — and live with the consequences.

Including me and my feeling of guilt for the way I came undone after meeting a frail old man on a steep leafy lane.

This post was written in November, 2010