斯考特·罗素·桑德斯/Scott Russell Sanders
I knew a man, a very tall, gentle man, for several years before I found out that he visited prisoners in our local prison, week in and week out for decades. He would write letters for them, carry messages, fetch clothing or books. But mainly he just offered himself. He did not preach to them, didn't pick and choose between the likable and the nasty, didn't look for any return on his kindness. All that mattered was that they were in trouble.
Why did he spend time with outcasts when he could have been playing golf or watching TV?“I go in case everyone else has given up on them,”he told me once,“I never give up.”
Never giving up is a trait we honour in athletes, in soldiers, in survivors of disasters, in patients recovering from severe injuries. If you struggle bravely against overwhelming odds, you're liable to end up on the evening news. But in less flashy, less newsworthy forms, fidelity to a mission or a person or an occupation shows up in countless lives all around us.
It shows up in parents who will not quit loving their daughter even after she dyes her hair purple, tattoos her belly and runs off with a rock band. It shows up in couples who choose to mend their marriages instead of filing for divorce. It shows up in volunteers at the hospital or library or women's refuge or soup kitchen. It shows up in unsung people everywhere who do their jobs well, not because the supervisor is watching or because they are paid gobs of money but because they know their work matters.
When my son Jesse was 12, his teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer. She told the children about the disease, about the surgery and therapy, and about her hopes for recovery. Jesse came home deeply impressed that she had trusted them with her news. She could have stayed at home for the rest of the year on medical leave, but as soon as the mastectomy healed, she began going in to school one afternoon a week, then two, then a full day, then two days and three.