Four
People can change your life in either a good way or bad way. Sometimes it is up to you to decide how they affect you. Other times, it may not be your decision; you just have to decide how you will react to their role in your life. Most people think about their parents, friends, and loved ones when they think about someone who has changed their life. For others, it may be a religious event or spiritual revelation. For me, it was an unfamiliar and unnamed face; one that has made me realize how a small, insignificant event can continue to mean a great deal to you.
When I was thirteen, my grandmother had the chance to travel to Brazil for a mission trip. My mother, aunt, and grandmother were singers in a trio that traveled around to different churches fellowshipping with those that shared the same beliefs and trying to reach others who did not. Originally, it was just the three of them that were scheduled to travel abroad. Fortunately, they worked hard enough and saved the money for my sister and I to go with them. I am very glad they did because it was an experience that opened my eyes to things I would not have experienced if they had not invited me to come with them.
We flew from Dallas to Miami, then Miami to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We were in Rio for about a week and I remember bits and pieces of things we did, places we saw. But, to me, the most memorable event took place at a little bistro, unnamed and, certainly now, lost to the changes time brings to places. I was drinking some warm tea after my meal, talking with the interpreter about what she did when she was not translating for tourists. People were walking up and down the sidewalk, as if to overhear our conversation, and I noticed a familiar figure that had walked by before.
I glanced at the figure and realized it was a young man, not much older than me at the time. He noticed me watching him and leaned over the waist-high fence that separated my world from his. He said something in Portuguese I could not understand. I just stared, briefly, past his brown face and into his eyes. It was a look I had never noticed before in another young man’s eyes. He was trying to tell me something and, before I could say anything, the interpreter yelled at him. Though I did not know what she said I could tell she told him, in one way or another, to leave. It was a response he had heard a thousand times before. He clicked his tongue on the backside of his front teeth, pushed the fence he was leaning against, lowered his eyebrows to show resentment, and stormed down the pavement with his hands in his pockets. “He wanted your food,” she said. “You can’t feed or give anything to them. They’ll never leave you alone. Sometimes, they rob you,” she told me. There was no hesitation in her voice, no remorse, and I knew it was more than food he wanted from people like me.
I would later learn of issues related to money, global markets and economies; things I did not have a clue of at the time. But that young man’s eyes was the first remnant I experienced in a foreign country of what is both cruel and divine in the world we live in. I do not remember, exactly, the curves of his face, the color of his hair, or the clothes he was wearing, but I do remember those dark eyes that stared into mine. I do not know if that young man grew up. The streets of Brazil, like many similar places, are no place to raise a family; they are as hard as the stone hands that reach out to the city at its highest point. I do not know if he became harmful or helpful to his society. There is no way to know, but every brown face I see reminds me of him. Sometimes, I see him holding a young girl’s hand as he hugs his mother goodbye in the morning, kiss his wife and children, and weep for a loved one who has passed as their casket is lowered into the ground. To me, he will forever be unnamed, but always remembered.
