Working at a school, I am faced with many questions and
phone calls from parents looking for a program for their child; or local
districts looking for a seat for a child (ages 3 to 5). But last week I received
a strange phone call, one that I thought was a prank call at first but after giving
a listening ear; and as the caller put it “A minute to spare”, I realized it was
someone in desperate need of guidance in the right direction.
Now normally if my boss or coworker hear calls like this,
they just reply with “Sorry I can’t help you” or a more brutal response of just
hanging up on them; but I have a heart and I like to help everyone, and I did
have a minute to spare. This woman was looking for help for an elderly man who
is in his early 70’s and is in desperate need of finding a job to survive. Can
you imagine 70 years old and are looking to work?! His mother took care of him his whole life and
recently passed away, and he is on dialysis, has no education and is considered
to be mentally disabled, but cannot survive on his disability pay and is
seeking employment.
I felt so bad for the woman telling me the story of how she
is looking for help, for anyone to just steer her in the right direction to
help this man. She’s gone to libraries, hospitals, colleges, any place that she
can just get some sort of information on where to look to help this gentleman
so he can maintain his independence. A simple request of “Do you have a minute
to spare”; one that most people would just quickly say no to, I decided to take
the time out and listen to her and assist her.
Within the 25 minutes I took out of my busy day, I was able
to help her find a center who could aide this gentleman with not only a life
coach, but also a job coach for the mentally disabled as well as special
programs out there that help those with special needs (weather physical or
mental) maintain their independence and an opportunity to survive. All she was
looking for was someone to help her help another. She said something to me that
I will never forget; she said to me “it is so rare to find a selfless person
willing to help those in need, and willing to just listen to people and listen
to their life stories, sometimes all one person needs is someone to spare that minute
to change their life.”
