In My Write Mind

[originally posted September 2005]

I‘m not a phone person. Never really have been one. I will do it when necessary. Carry on a great conversation, even. But still, my preference has never been fiber optic. I like to see the person I’m talking to. Or else be able to communicate in my most comfortable medium — through the written word. However, yesterday, when that number was given to me, when I had the opportunity to make that phone call … nothing could stop me. Nothing could hold me back from dialing. Nothing.

I had to make that call.

It lasted all of 3 minutes and 12 seconds. I checked. Wanted to make a record of it. Store it in my memory. Because it was some of the most valuable time I’ve spent on Earth to date. That’s the way I feel. About a phone call. And I’m really not a phone person. Yesterday I was.

I made that call.

It was 3:44 in the afternoon. I was waiting for the Q84 bus in Queens. Three blocks from my mother’s house, I made a phone call to someone else’s father. Someone who I looked upon as a hero only three days after hearing of him. My friend, Yolanda, a fellow blogger, wrote about how her father stayed behind in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, stayed behind to take care of women and children, giving them shelter and food, protecting them from the elements and the bad element. She told how he still had a working phone and a band of lieutenants by his side. Protecting. Feeding. Surviving.

He was my hero. I had to make the call.

She told me that he would definitely appreciate a call from outside of New Orleans, an encouraging word or two, a fiber optic handshake. Once the numbers were on my screen, they went into my phone. I started trying to get my thoughts together, tried to figure out a way to convey just how much I appreciated what he was doing for those people … what had become his people. Had to let him know that he became my people. My hero. Sure Kanye spoke out, but this man, a man I didn’t even know … he stood out. Stood up.

I had to make that call.

I stopped trying to map out what to say. My thoughts were jumbled enough as it was. Decided to just make the call. The way he made the call to stay behind and care for what had become his troops. I made the decision to just let it flow. Say what was on my mind. Talk to my hero off the cuff, from the heart. Tell him how glad I was to know of him, and what he’s doing.

I made the call. At 3:44. Spent the next 3 minutes and 12 seconds on the phone with a real hero, a man I didn’t even know of until this week. I started off by saying thank you and how much I admired him. Didn’t even tell him my name. Told him I was Yolie’s friend, then just pressed on with my admiration, my thanks. He said thank you. Asked me who I was. I told him. Not like it mattered. It was all about him on this day, during this 3 minute-plus call that I had to make even though the phone really isn’t my thing.

I asked him what he needed, what I could do to help him and his. Told him I had a few dollars and could try and put together a package of supplies. Offered my help and my time and energy. To my hero. He told me he would let me know what he needed, what I could send him. But then … instead of asking for anything material, anything that would most likely help them with their survival … he asked … that I make a phone call for him. To a young man who used to live in New Orleans and had been trying to get in touch with him all week. He said the man looked up to him as a mentor. I couldn’t blame him. I felt the same way. He was my hero. Became even more so after that change of pace, after he wanted others to know he was OK, that he was surviving. Didn’t brag or ask for anything. Told me he would get back to me. As long as I got in touch with the young man.

I made that call, too.

Those 3 minutes and 12 seconds came a day after getting a phone call from Diggs, after worrying about where she was for a week. Within that 24 hour time span, my heart was about to burst. I’d heard from Diggs. Spoke to my hero. Felt their pain, felt their energy. And with all of that going on inside my head, inside my heart …

I got on the bus. And cried.

Cried tears that I’d held back all week, cried because of the coverage, the suffering and the biased handling of the disaster. Of the people. I cried because of the safety of one friend, the compassion and heroics of a new one.

I will never forget where I was at 3:44 on Friday, September 2, 2005. That’s the exact time when I felt what Kanye expressed. The exact time when I could put another voice to the struggle, to the survivors and the situation in the Bayou. The exact time I spoke to my hero, Yolanda’s father.

I’m sure there are more of those out there in New Orleans as I type this. All heroes. Yesterday, I got to speak to mine. To think, he may have just gone from watching New Orleans Saints games to becoming one himself. I made the call.

And even though I’m not a phone person, whether or not to call was an easy call to make.

I’m about to cry again …