Won't You Be My Neighbor?

My wife and I saw the Mr. Rogers movie a few weeks ago. I definitely remember watching one iteration of his show when I was a kid. The trolley and castle were most appealing to me. I don’t think I took in much of what he said. But then again, maybe I did. A few things from the movie stuck with me. 

The notion of silence and space that he created is sorely missed from TV today. My wife and I are both fairly quiet people. We wake up quietly and open and close doors quietly and keep the TV at the lowest volume possible. This has been tough with a young child because so many shows and toys are so loud and busy. One of my favorite things to do is take my son outside on our back porch. He is now interested in the deer and birds that come to visit. I am trying to teach him that there is great beauty in quiet stillness, and also, that other creatures are our neighbors. 

Mr. Rogers was an expert with children. Working with children was his gift. The way he interacted with children would now (I think) be deeply suspicious to many people. I had to admit that if his show came on today, my first thought would likely be, “This dude’s a creeper.” And yes, I know how awful that thought is. It troubles me that I think this way and that people who are drawn to children and gifted with them sometimes make me uneasy. But his way of seeing the child in everyone challenges me. I am really angry pretty much all the time right now. There are lots of people doing lots of things I loathe. I have even had hatred in my heart for some of these people. So how do I remember that they are someone’s child? This is another thing that I hope I teach well to my children. I don’t believe people are bad or good. People do bad and harmful things. Many times the same people do good and loving things. People are deeply complex, and treating each person with as much love and compassion as we can means that we treat them as though we understand they are someone’s child.

A guy in Luke’s gospel asks Jesus a question: “Who is my neighbor?” The way the man asks the question suggests that he is trying to get Jesus to let him off the hook from loving certain people. Jesus doesn’t fall for it. He tells a story that is now mostly known as “The Good Samaritan.” (Reading AJ Levine’s book on the parables pointed out to me how bad/racist that title is. Think of someone saying “The Good Mexican.” See what she means?). My reading of the story is that ultimately Jesus says, “Your neighbor is whoever you treat like a neighbor.” In other words, we decide for ourselves who our neighbors are and aren’t. Think of Mr. Rogers’ question. Rather than saying, “Who can I get away with not having as a neighbor?” he instead asks, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” And it seems as though he asked that of more or less everyone. 

Four

*Author's note: An earlier version of this post conflated two different days into one. This mistake proves both my claim to not remember any actual dates correctly and the indispensable relationship I have with my wife. Without her, I literally would not know what day it is. 

Katie and I had finished running the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville. We weren’t even supposed to be running in it, but the St. Jude Half in Memphis was cancelled due to winter happening. One of the options we had was to transfer our registration to Nashville, and we thought, “Why not?” It turned out to be somewhat fortuitous because, a few weeks before the run, we found out we would be moving to Nashville. So, we could take advantage of our time in the city to check out places to live. This was a turning point in our lives. We had married three years earlier and had lived in the same house ever since. We were excited to be in a new place with new possibilities. This was four years ago to the day.

About a month after the half marathon we were back in Nashville. This time Katie had a job interview, and we were checking out more places to live as it was getting down to the wire. We were looking at a rental home. It was in an area we liked, but the landlords were really weird. Like too weird to be actual people; more like landlord caricatures. As we were leaving the house, someone pulled up in a car and asked if we had seen his Giant African Tortoise. He had made a sign with a photo on it that read “Lost Tortoise” with a phone number. The sign wasn’t great, but at least it was to the point. I started looking around for a camera crew and trying to remember 1) if “Punk’d” still existed and 2) if they ever messed with people who are the opposite of celebrities. We talked with him a few minutes about his escape reptile. All the time I’m wondering “How fast can those things go?! I mean, the search grid shouldn’t be that large.” The person who was taking us around to show us rentals mentioned something about a creek nearby. Surely the man would find his pet there. As we were parting she said, “I hope you find your turtle.” The guy said nothing. I told Katie later that I would have given all the money I had to the guy if he had shouted back, “It’s A Tortoise!” To this day I have no clue if that creek exists or not. It was a good day, and then my phone rang.

My stepdad was calling me which rarely happened. He said something about my mom being in the hospital. I was confused. He was more confused. I knew that we had to cut our tour of homes short. We drove back to Jackson (where we were living at the time) and went to see my mom in the hospital. I still had no idea what was really happening. It turned out mom had undergone a colonoscopy (which I had no knowledge of), and it revealed tumors in her colon. In the next few days she would officially be diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, Stage IV.

I have been on a spectrum of numbness since that day, and really I connect that day with the day of the half marathon because my excitement on that initial day was challenged by the news to come. The median survival for those who have the same diagnosis as my mom and received treatment is (we were told at the time) two and a half years. We have had four years with her, and they have brought great joy and immense sorrow. My mom and stepdad are now in assisted living although he doesn’t know they are, neither does he know (most days) that she has cancer. My brother and I, with the help of countless people, have taken over their affairs. Obviously all of this has brought numerous difficulties but also blessings. In going through their things I found my mom’s engagement photos before her marriage to my father. She was breathtakingly beautiful, and that’s not just a son saying a somewhat creepy thing about his mother - many others have said the same thing. I found the train set they (mostly my stepdad) got me when I was probably around ten years old. It wasn’t some cheap garbage set. It was a Lionel set with a metal engine. I probably haven’t seen it in twenty years, but I recovered the whole set, and I can’t wait to show it to my children. Notice I said “show;” they won’t be allowed to play with or even touch the train set. I don’t want to spoil them the way I was.

My mom is still young, and yet I know we likely don’t have much time left together. After a fairly long period of dormancy (apparently you can’t really use the term “remission” when someone has this form of cancer) her disease is now spreading pretty rapidly. She’s trying an oral chemotherapy drug. So far she’s experienced minimal side effects. It’s mostly making her much weaker which is among the hardest things to see given the fact that I know of few people as strong as she. I’ll be going by to visit her tomorrow. I don’t know whether I’ll bring up the four year anniversary or not. I might remind her of some of the other parts of the story and show her the Facebook background I haven’t changed in four years. It’s been more or less frozen since that day when my life drastically shifted into this new normal which is still so abnormal.

Four years seems like a long time, but it really isn’t. I compare it to how I reflect on high school and college. Those days are basically like flashes of light. But, certain days stand out to me, and my memory of those days hits me with a lot of detail. I remember almost everything about September 11, 2001. Also the night I found out one of my closest friends died and the days that followed can’t be erased. I remember good stuff too. Soccer games, my first job at Chick-Fil-A, concerts, picking up a turtle that then peed on me (or maybe released water in this weird way - perhaps water from a creek) - all moments that won’t go away. I’m not sure the specific moments I’ll remember from the last four years. I’m trying to record as many memories as I can in my brain. But that’s never really how it’s worked for me. There’s no accounting for my memory. I will forget quickly extremely important things. Dates almost never stick. It’s usually when bizarre things happen. Running 13.1 miles with around 40,000 other people and then looking at houses and then being confronted with the terror of a tortoise on the loose and then a phone call. I don’t even remember when the call actually happened. Hell, it was four years ago.