Women's
Health Day, up at the old hospital in Northport, started as an ordinary,
pleasant, welcome annual event. It filled an important need. On that day
uninsured and underinsured women in Leelanau County could receive a
free health checkup, including mammogram. Health care was the object,
but somehow it was a fun morning! Half the town was there, all ages, and it
felt very egalitarian and social. There was nothing embarrassing
about it. It was like going to vote, except that people had time to chat
in the waiting room.
Then
one year it was taken over by a large group of volunteers, women who had no
need of the services but a great need to be needed. They put on a big brunch
spread and then, having really nothing more to do but not wanting to feel
useless, went around the room urging the women who had come for their checkups
to avail themselves of the buffet. They themselves were not going to the
buffet; nor were they in need of free checkups. Medical attention and food were
for the others.
For the
first time, the event was structured by class: on one hand there was the host
of ladies bountiful, on the other a crowd of women in need. Those of us
who came for the checkup, the supplicants, were dressed casually, many in
blue jeans, while the ladies bountiful were set apart in dresses and
heels. The fun was gone! The following year I skipped the
whole thing. Now the hospital is gone, and so is the event.
I
bring it up because of something that concerns me with many do-good projects.
So often, in a way, the volunteers are as needy as the
recipients of the bounty to be distributed. The givers need projects
and purpose and meaning in their lives. They need to feel needed and need
to give and need to be recognized as givers. But they don't usually see
themselves as needy. They do see themselves, in a helping context. Do they, I
wonder, always see those they are so eager to help?
I
don't mean to ignore or deny the genuine humanitarian impulse. It's good to want to
do good in the world, and doing good probably needs to be encouraged and,
yes, rewarded, too! I'm also sure it's easiest for all of us to see
ourselves in positive roles, wherever we are in life, and hardest to
see others differently situated in as positive a guise. I don't mean to
point fingers. Really.
But
if you think about it for a minute, you know, whatever your
station and condition in life, that it can be a lot harder to
receive than to give. And when only one group is acknowledged as
givers, the other defined as beneficiaries, a dynamic set up:
the first group is one-up, the second one-down. And so, while what's given
is helpful in one way, it can be destructive in other ways.
This
is a digression, but one of the most memorable lessons life ever gave me was in
the example of a friend who suffered severe physical trauma, losing much of the
ordinary health and strength the fortunate among us take for granted every day.
After the incident that nearly took her life, and after a long, painful period
of recuperation, my friend, unable drive a car and without not stamina to walk
to and stand at a bus stop, was dependent on friends to drive her to the
grocery store. Once there she needed to tour the store in a motorized chair.
She needed someone to carry her groceries out to the car and into her house.
She needed a lot of help. And yet – this was the miracle and the lesson – she never expressed pity for
herself, never apologized for needing help, and neither did she demand
assistance in a resentful or autocratic way. She was natural about it all, graciously
graceful.
It was just the way things were, and we were friends, and we did things
together. That was all. And so the way she received the help she needed was a gift
she gave to us,
her friends. Not many people could pull that off! I doubt I could ever do it with her grace,
but if I am ever in a similar position, I hope I will remember her example and
try!
I
feel uniquely positioned in Leelanau County, with a foot in each
camp, not a full-fledged member of either group. For twenty
years, before eligible for Medicare, I went without health insurance
(Women's Health Day was a godsend to me!), and I have no retirement pension
waiting for me down the road. But by education and as a local business
owner for nearly a quarter of a century, I am at least a nominal member of
the privileged group.
I
understand the desire to help and to give, as well as the need for recognition.
My own charitable giving means a lot to me, I am very careful about causes I
choose to support, and I wish I could do more. At the same time, I also know,
from not having had health insurance for so long and being still unable to sign
blank checks for expensive health care, the sting of being designated as
"needy," when I work very hard to be independent and
provide for myself!
None
of this is meant as criticism of any individuals or groups. I “bring it to
the table” because the people around the table are generally in the
bountiful givers group, and that's no accident. They are the ones with
free time, and they are also the ones who feel comfortable and
welcome at the table.
They are seen as – and feel themselves as -- belonging there.
But
those not at the table are "stake-holders,"
too. They have a stake in the economic wellbeing of their community, in
the education provided for their children, and in being recognized as community
members.
I
don't see
inviting the two groups to the table together, however, as the solution or
even the beginning of a solution.
So
what is???
I
suspect a "solution" to the gap in class and need may be something no
group can invent, regardless how many hours are spent brainstorming. Maybe it
just takes one-on-one conversations, in casual encounters, with a lot
more listening on both sides. It might also take, for every single one of
us -- me, included! -- looking into our own hearts and being honest
with ourselves about what we see there.
What
will we find? Then, what will we do with what we find? I don't know.
Sorry
this is inconclusive. I have no recipe to offer, only my perspective from
the gap, from the social chasm, between rich and poor.
