We were back in the corner of my office, where no one could see us. Noor was sitting in a chair in front of my desk, as I was proofreading his resume. He was telling me stories, grand stories of his work as an interpreter with the United States Army. I had heard similar stories before, or so I thought. I nodded my head and continued to scroll my finger down the page. I was taking it in, but also, I was multitasking- so in reality I wasn't taking it ALL in.
Until he took off his shirt.
A big hairy man belly was staring me in the face. And it was decorated.
"See here?" he said, tracing a thick pink zig zag scar from his low hip diagonally across his abdomen. "And here?" He turned his back to me and pointed to 2 star-like holes. "I'm a miracle." He began laughing hard.
"Are those bullet holes???"
"Yes Miss Kacie. I was shot 5 times. See? Here, here, here and two times through my hand. Ha! Really. Straight through the front, and over my heart. But that was all on the second attack."
I put his resume down, and spent the afternoon learning more about this man who had been in my class for over 2 weeks and I apparently knew nothing about. He invited me for dinner that night, and I awkwardly ate with him the meal his wife prepared for us. Young and beautiful and painfully shy, she cowered behind a corner in the hallway and poked her head out every couple of minutes. The rice was fluffy and soft and smelled of spices. Noor brought out a stack of pictures which showed of a time where he was dressed in fatigues and strapped with an AK-47. He didn't look younger then, the war hadn't aged him the way it does some. Instead, his story, his past, his experiences, they energized him. He radiated a certain confidence that I hadn't seen in quite some time. He said he never wanted to give it up. He never wanted to stop working for the US Army. He loved it. But after his second recovery his Sergeant got him an expedited special visa and flew him and his family straight to San Diego. He told Noor, "You gotta get out of here. They're after you."
I took him to a few security agencies in attempts of finding him a job. I wrote special letters of recommendation explaining all that he had been through and how he had succeeded. But I advised him to keep his shirt down in the interviews.
That was 3 months ago, and he is still unemployed.
Today when I drove home from work I saw a teenager standing at the intersection across from my house. She had a fresh cardboard sign; "Hungry. Please help." It jostled me, seeing this young, lonely, semi-attractive girl begging. I watched her secretly count her dollar bills and then stash them away. I wondered about her, as I'm sure most people do.
Why did her situation seem more sad to me then the man I had seen that morning? Why was I so disturbed and intrigued?
I put my head out my car window. "Hey where you from?"
She turned and answered "Huh?"
"Where are you from?"
"Florida."
I saw her eyes and they told of her age. She looked to be about 15. They also told of something much more.
"Florida?"
"Well, ya Florida. But I've been here since I was 13."
There is nothing more sad than a child who has lost hope.
"Why aren't you working?" I asked the loaded question, but the timing of the light forced it into superficiality.
"I've tried to find work and there aren't any jobs. I need to eat."
She had a preteen whine in her voice, like I was her parent and she was justifying herself.
"I understand." I said. The light turned green. "It's hard. But there are jobs. You will get one." I gave her an encouraging smile and drove over to my house.
When I got inside I thought about her a lot. I wondered about life, about the ingredients that can rob a person of their zeal, that can push them to scribble with a big black felt pen words of desperation for all to see.
How do people find hope? How do they lose it?
Hope isn't designed to be elusive. I think about my own depressions. I think about who and what offered me hope in those times, and surprisingly, it wasn't the grand gestures that pulled me up. It was the small doses of encouragement from oftentimes unlikely sources, at unlikely times; humans are designed to receive, and offer, encouragement. It is one of our most powerful tools.
Of course, there are people who have survived incredible odds and through that they have evolved in to very serious, very potent messages of hope. Noor is one of these people.
But then there are the rest of us, millions of us, who through small commitments and momentary decisions, also help empower and fuel the engine of humanity into beautiful places.