The Invisible People

Lately I find myself being drawn to people who might otherwise be invisible.

I was at a park the other day with my son. We sat at a picnic table, the fresh autumn breeze whispered by, as I spied two people in my periphery. There were two men eating lunch at a nearby table. One was an elderly gentleman with a kind face, a baseball cap covering his brow. The other man was much younger and he had some sort of identification card around his neck. I quickly surmised that the younger man was some sort of health care worker. The two sat in silence, not talking or even looking at each other. The worker got up when they were finished and the kindly looking elderly man slowly followed. He had a cane and he paced himself to keep up with his caregiver. The sun dappled through the trees casting a halo about his capped head. It was then that I looked at his face, which although weathered, reminded me of a young boy, innocent and forlorn.

Something about this man's image made me feel wistfully sad. Perhaps it was the fact that his "friend" was someone who had to be paid to be there for him. Maybe it was the thinking that I too would someday experience the autumn of my life. Or maybe it was the realization that there are so many invisible people in the world who go unnoticed, even by the people nearest to them.

The other day I saw an older couple at the local coffee shop. Just like any other couple at a coffee shop, they were sipping their drinks at a little lattice table while reading the newspaper. But what was unique about this particular couple was that the man was pulling around an oxygen tank and his wife was confined to a wheelchair. I watched as the man struggled just a bit to get the bulky tank in between the aisle of tables so he could order. His wife waited outside in her wheelchair. They both went about their business anonymously to blend in with the small cafe crowd. Nobody seemed to give much notice to them at all. Most people avoided any eye contact and would instead divert their gaze to inhuman metal appendages such as the tank of oxygen or the wheels of the woman’s chair. When they left, the husband opened the door to their van which was equipped with a ramp for his wife to get into the vehicle. When they drove away, the empty concrete parking spot left no trace of their existence. It was then that I sat and wondered. I wondered if this was the future they had imagined. I wondered if their coffee shop time was special or was it merely part of an ordinary routine. Did they get out much? Do they ever hold hands? I marveled at the level of trust they must have for one another as they navigate through life bound by certain un-negotiable limitations.

Once again I felt a bittersweet melancholy wash over me. I thought about all the people you see from a distance but don't really see. These people pass in and out of your periphery without much of a glance or thought. But these days my eyes are open and it is as though I am finally seeing the world and its inhabitants for the first time.

Today I bought a small pumpkin for my son at the store. I was passing by the card section when I looked up to see a thin gaunt woman with a buggy full of food and one toddler sitting in the front. The little girl was bright and smiling; tufts of blonde fairy hair fell below her shoulders. I was looking downward, lost in my own thoughts so it was only when the woman was directly in front of me that I noticed she didn't have any hair. She was totally bald. No scarf, turban, or wig hid her condition from view. I felt almost proud of this stranger for her fearless exposure. I quickly looked away as I didn't want to stare. I wanted to reach out and say, "You are not invisible to me. I see you and you matter." but of course I didn't do or say any of those things. Instead I quickly averted my eyes and moved stealthily past her as though she didn't exist.

The protocol is what it has always been. We turn our head and heart away only to pretend that the faces we see are as meaningless as an empty grey slate. We never let on that we are touched, that we feel, and that we search for our own reflection in the crowd. We languidly move through life with eyes which only see inward, avoiding any need for human connection. Our empty eyes are met with nothingness and we too become one of the invisible.