'Something Awesome' along Route 66

Nine hours of driving is too long. Around hour four I came up on a small interstate town in New Mexico. Trail mix and Red bull left my stomach in need of actual food, so I decided to pull over and make a sandwich. As I was looking for a good place to stop I saw a man with a cardboard sign that read ‘two daughters, need help’. I remembered the cash that I received earlier in the trip and had promised to do 'something awesome' with. I pulled up next to the man’s Subaru that was packed with clothes and boxes. Inside the car were two young girls whose eyes peeked out at me from the backseat. I asked the three of them if they were hungry and the girls shook their heads up and down eagerly.

‘There’s a restaurant up the road. Let’s get some food’ I suggested.

‘We haven’t showered. We’re not really fit to go anywhere’ the man protested humbly. He was wearing jeans and a shabby jacket.

‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s get some food’ I repeated.

We sat down at the Route 66 diner and started chatting. Dennis, a man in his late 40s is the father of his two girls, Caitlin and Mckelsey. The girls are 13 and 11, respectively.  Dennis had deep worry wrinkles on his face and a tired, defeated look about him.  His salt and pepper stubble led up to a mess of grey hair matted down under a black ski cap. His gauged ears partially covered tattoos of his daughter’s names on his neck. The girls wore dirty sweatshirts and new matching jeans and boots that they told me they had received for Christmas from a community shelter. The girls seemed tired too, but still had a youthful energy. We started chatting over chips and salsa after our waitress took our orders. Dennis told me a story of love and loss. He shared with me that they were running away from a domestic violence situation in which he was run over by a car. They had to leave almost everything behind in exchange for their safety. I could tell the girls didn’t want to talk about their sad story. I posed silly questions, asking them what their favorite food is (chicken strips and mashed potatoes), where they would like to vacation (‘anywhere but Texas…ick!’), and their favorite subjects in school (science and math). We talked about pets and I showed them pictures of Kai, my mutt. Caitlin told me a story about the time Mckelsey ate salmon eggs while they were fishing because she thought they were candy. We laughed and water came out Mckelsey’s nose, so we laughed even harder. As our food arrived I told them about camping and how excited I was for the Grand Canyon. I talked and they shoveled food into their mouths hungrily. Mckelsey had already finished half her plate of chicken tenders before I finished dressing my salad. Caitlin didn’t get it.

‘You’ve hiked the canyon four times and you’re still excited?’ she challenged. I painted them a verbal picture of how beautiful the canyon is and how good it feels to accomplish the hike. Mckelsey was more interested in the mules.

‘Did you know mules can’t even reproduce? It takes a donkey and a horse. I don’t know why a horse would be interested in an ugly old donkey’. She made a donkey face and ‘heehawed’, much to Caitlin’s pleasure. We finished our meals and I paid the check with my Tour de Polkahontas scholarship money. We wished each other the best of luck on our respective journeys and parted ways.

I drove away, reflecting on the conversation and hoping with all my heart that those sweet girls would have a fair shot in this life. An hour later my gas light came on. At the entrance of the Pilot station was a dirty couple with two dogs and a sign reading ‘Santa Rosa’. They were trying to get to the town I had just come from. As the gas pumped into my tank I filled a grocery sack with bottled water and spare snacks from my car. The strong wind blew my gas cap off the trunk of my car and carried it across the parking lot like a hockey puck. The dirty man chased it down and brought it over to me. Our eyes met as I handed him the bag of goodies, and we exchanged thank yous. Under other circumstances, I would have stayed to chat. But in all honesty, I was cold and wanted to get home for dinner- green chile soup from mom’s kitchen. We waved at each other as I pulled out of the gas station and sent up a prayer that they’d find a warm place to sleep that night.

While working in the psychiatric hospital last summer, we conducted interviews with a few of the patients individually. We would mostly talk about food and vacations, but we really wanted to know about their experience with mental illness. It’s part of their discharge criteria to be open about their offense. We weren’t allowed to ask them about it directly, so we danced around it and asked about ‘rock bottom’. Almost every patient answered that being homeless was rock bottom. They described the anxiety of not knowing if they’d be able to eat that day or sleep someplace warm and safe. They described feeling invisible, alone, and afraid. A friend from college once told me about her trip to Detroit where she was shocked by the abundance of homeless people. Everyone in her group was annoyed because she took the time to greet them as she passed. She didn’t walk by and ignore them like most people do because she wanted them to know that she saw them. To me, this is beautiful. This is what I wanted for the hospital patients last summer, and what I wanted for the friends I made yesterday. I wanted them to know that they aren’t alone and they aren’t invisible.

I didn’t do much for the people I met on the road. It was a bit of food and only an hour out of my life that I sacrificed. But the human connection will stick with us for much longer than the meal. It is a simple message, capable of encouragement far beyond our understanding. ‘I see you. I see that you exist’.