Thinking About People I Don’t Know

“How’s Oscar doing?” I write in an email.

I was asking my friend about a challenging employee she has dealt with for years. I have never met the man and feel no need to do so, yet I find myself asking about him, his work performance, and his family situation. I’ve done this for the years she has known him.

I know not why.

I question her about people in her neighborhood, others she has mentioned encountering. Not all of them but many.

I have questioned myself about why I do this. Why are their lives of concern to me but truly, they are of interest to me. Oscar is not the only person whom I have never met or have met only briefly yet I think about and wonder how his or her life is progressing with its challenges.

Maybe it is my way of letting my friend know I care about what is going on in her life.

Sitting in a church pew waiting for the friend I was visiting to finish her business, a seven-year-old girl whom I had never seen, walked over to me and with the most caring voice, looked me straight in the eye, saying “how ARE you? I hope all is ok.” She didn’t just speak the words, she stood there beside me, as if waiting for me to confide some plight I was dealing with before she turned, leaving to join her family.

Who was she? Why did she choose to leave her family, come into the sanctuary, and speak to me in such an endearing way?