[NOTE: I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Maya Angelou be the keynote speaker at Augustana College on May 11. In her speech, she mentioned that people should be a "light" for others. This is my interpretation of being a "light" for someone.]
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine!
Daniel was your typical business man trying to make it to the top. He worked late often, and it’s taken a toll on any sort of relationship he may try to start. His last girlfriend was so sick of his intense work ethic that she left him after he left for work. She left a note that simply said, “It was me or your job. Be happy with your decision.”
Daniel was walking home on that night. His car had broken down the day before, so he had to take public transportation to and from work until it was repaired. He took a taxi as long as he could, but he soon realized that the bus is cheaper, and neither the bus driver nor the other passengers wanted to strike up a conversation as the taxi driver would. Daniel could be alone in his own thoughts, surrounded by people, and it suited him just fine.
But this day, he had no change, and not enough money for a taxi, so he decided to walk. Walking, he quickly discovered, is a lot different than riding a bus. The most obvious difference was the time of travel. It was still only 10 city blocks from his office to his house, but in the time it took for him to travel four blocks on foot, the bus had reached and even surpassed his house. The other difference was the people he encountered. The bus only had the occasional freak that would ride the bus and never get off; now every corner had its own blind man, or Vietnam vet, or heroin addict needing a quick fix. Daniel quickly became very aware of his surroundings, hugging his briefcase and quickening his pace.
As he passed an alleyway, he heard a moan. His head told him to keep walking and not get involved, but his gut turned him around and made him investigate the sound. A scream lodged in his throat at the sight of him, a young man no older than 17, lying in the fetal position, naked, covered in blood and bruises, moaning and sobbing.
Daniel dropped his briefcase and ran to the man. He turned the man to his side and wiped the blood from his swollen eyes. Daniel called out to any passerby to get help, and only one person listened and called the police. Daniel stayed with the man and talked to him. He found out that the man’s name was Tyson, and he had only gone into the alley with the promise of drugs. He had barely gotten into the alley when he was hit from behind with a baseball bat, and everything was a blur from there.
The emergency medical technicians arrived within a half-hour, loaded Tyson on a stretcher, and, with a roar of the sirens, carried him off to the hospital. Daniel was initially barred from riding in the ambulance with Tyson, but one of the technicians allowed him in the back. After arriving at the hospital, he told the lady at the front desk that he would pay for most of Tyson’s stay at the hospital. With the weight off his shoulders, Daniel got his bearings, and walked the rest of the way home.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine!
Tyson was a lucky one. The injuries he sustained in the alley that night would have killed him if it hadn’t been for Daniel’s quick thinking. A two month stay at the hospital was all it took for Tyson to get back on his feet. He walked out the doors, took a look at his surroundings, and decided he should get his GED.
Due to a poor home life, Tyson felt no need for school. He was only there because it kept the law off of his back. He became addicted to drugs at an early age, and at the age of 16, he dropped out of school. He hopped from job to job, only working to get money to feed his addiction, whereupon he would be fired for failing a drug test. That night he had just been fired from his job at Subway, and he was walking to the bank with his last paycheck, the back already signed. He had done this ever since he started working; the quicker he could get his money, the quicker he could get his fix, the quicker he could start looking for his new job.
As he passed the alley, a couple of his friends called him over, saying that they had his fix for half the cost. He had gone no further than the shadow of the building before the bat made contact with his back, knocking the breath out of him. It was a blur from that point on, until Daniel arrived at his side, calling for help.
But that was in his past. He was going to apply for his GED, and he was off drugs for good. But first, he had to get a job. He had worked at, and subsequently been fired from, nearly all of the fast-food restaurants in town, so there was no chance for him to gain employment from there. On a whim, he decided to go to the library and look through the want ads in the newspaper.
On his way he met up with a young boy sitting on the curb, crying. The boy was dressed in a shirt that fit a bit too snug on his body and jeans with rips and tears in various places, with a large dirt stain on the seat. Tyson pitied the boy; he knew that this must have been what he looked like once upon a time. Tyson sat next to the boy and started talking to him. Tyson asked him what he was doing out on the curb, and the boy explained that he had been playing in the house, and his drunken father hit him and sent him out of the house. The boy had wandered around for a while, until he was so fed up with walking that he sat on the curb and began to cry.
Tyson felt sorry for the boy, and he had some money from a few get-well-soon cards, so he decided to treat the boy for some ice cream. The two walked and talked to the ice cream shop, where they both ordered a vanilla cone. They ate and laughed together, and after the ice cream was finished, the boy ran home in high spirits. Tyson, feeling good about himself, walked back to his home, determined to find a job tomorrow.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine!
Jacob had no idea who that man was seven years ago, but he was eternally grateful for his actions. Jacob had been abused by his father for some time, and he naturally assumed that all men older than him acted this way. All men older than him would drink themselves to a drunken stupor everyday and hit little children. The arrival of this mysterious man into his life had changed his perspective. This mysterious man had made Jacob realize that there were people out there that wanted to know him and be with him.
Jacob wrote poetry and short stories to help himself deal with his abusive father, but he had never thought anything of it until one of his teachers in middle school noticed a piece of paper with the beginnings of a poem on it. What was on the page was exquisite, so the teacher wrote a note on the page, folded it, and taped it to the door with Jacob’s name on it.
Jacob came to the school and noticed the piece of paper with his poem and an encouraging note, and decided to focus his energy on his writing. All through his high school career, he would submit works to be published, and he would consistently get a poem or a story published. He was recognized at graduation as “Woodbury’s Own Poet Laureate”, and got a writing scholarship to one of those prestigious writing colleges. His first book was published when he was only a junior, and was celebrated as an outstanding collection of personal narratives and essays. Since then, he’s had several more works published, each of which has been dedicated to “The Mysterious Man Who Changed My Life”.
Kathy, a girl of only 15, studied a story out of one of these books in her American Literature class. It was a story about a man who came upon a small boy crying on the curb. Kathy enjoyed the story so much that she signed up for a mentorship program run by her school, in hopes that one day, she, too, would be able to inspire and lead a young child to their dream.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!
I liked this story a lot and the picture was funny 