Author’s Note: I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy lately, or as it seems, the total lack thereof. Maybe it’s just me (and I truly hope it is), but I feel as if there is a generally Puritanical attitude towards the less fortunate in this country.

Too many seem to believe that if you are poor, or struggling, or homeless, you are either being punished, are lazy, or you want to be homeless. Factors such as where you were born, available opportunities, education, upbringing,

Essentially, if you are less fortunate, you deserve it. As a Catholic, as someone whose suffered misfortune through no fault of my own, as a human being, this is of great concern to me.

As a result, this is the first of four pieces regarding empathy. Three are personal encounters when I showed (or did not show) empathy. The fourth will be more of a traditional article regarding empathy – what it is, what it isn’t, and why it should matter to you.     

Post-College life

In the summer of ’91, I was a recent college graduate and a news intern at the Christian Science Monitor’s Radio operation in Boston.

All I wanted to be was a radio journalist. I had big dreams of being a foreign correspondent and reporting from the Balkans, the Middle East, or the USSR (Soon to be DOA). I wanted to be in a place where I’d need to hire a “fixer” and learn to say phrases like “My sources are confidential” in Pashto or Farsi. I had no real concern about what was happening in Boston.

I was sitting on a bench, gazing at the day’s paper, and waiting for the Red Line at the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s Park Street Station so I could make the trek to the Alewife train station just outside of Medford and back to my hometown of Winchester. I was glancing at the day’s Boston Globe when I felt someone looking down at me, and I heard a voice saying: “I can’t make it on my own.”

Where to?

I looked up and saw a man. He was shifting his weight constantly as if he was having a hard time balancing. Everything he wore was battered and worn. Seems were coming lose on his tweed jacket, his gray hair was covered by a fedora that had clearly seen better days, and his trousers were patched. He looked to be in his sixties or seventies, but he could have been much younger. I wondered if he had spent a night or two in a truck stop.

“I can’t make it on my own,” he repeated.

“Make it where?” I found myself asking, and he pointed to the stairwell that would bring him up to the Green line, one of the messiest subway systems on the East Coast.

“OK,” I said, and I offered him my arm for support and led him to the staircase. He grabbed onto my right arm with his left and the stair’s hand rail with his right. We went up the stairs slowly, while busy commuters scrambled around us, some passing us and looking back and giving us particularly dirty looks for the four or so seconds where we had interfered with their commute.

The whole time, limping up the stairs, the man repeated: “I can’t make it on my own…” over and over like a mantra. When we reached the top of the stairs, I felt the man’s hand that was gripping my coat, start to shake. I looked around, trying to find a place for him to sit. Seeing one, I guided him to a bench and helped sit him down.

“Are you going to be OK?” I asked him. He kept repeating the same phrase. People passed us by going elsewhere – home, dinner, drinks.

One man about my age walked past me, shook his head and rolled his eyes and gave a look that clearly said: “Why are you even bothering?”

Obviously, not everyone in the city had gotten the memo that Boston was supposed to be packed with do-gooder Liberals. But reputations, like first impressions, can be incorrect.

Because, I thought. Because…I don’t know. Because I felt that I should. Because he needed help and I could help him. Because…I couldn’t just leave him there, could I?

“Is there anything more I can do for you?” I asked, and the man just continued to gaze at me, mumbling.

Yes, I could leave him

I waited a while longer for some sign or some clue of needing further help – well, further help with something I could realistically help with – before saying: “Good luck, OK?”

I then turned back towards the stairs. I wasn’t even halfway down when I moved out of the way of the wave and went back up the stairs. He was sitting there still. Should I call the police or the fire department? Should I call Pine Street Inn or some other shelter?

I hadn’t even asked him his name.

After a few moments, I turned and went back down the stairs to meet the train.