fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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Supermarket Encounter

I was in a large supermarket in the late afternoon. At the busy cheese counter, I took a number and stood waiting in the large crowd. When my number was called, I pushed through the customers to the counter and gave my order. After I’d finished, I took a half-step backward and collided with someone.

As I turned around to apologize, I found myself facing a young woman who towered over me. I am white; she was African-American and wore the uniform of a meter maid. I said that I was sorry, that I hadn’t seen her.

“I was standing right behind you,” she said. Her tone was truculent; my apology had clearly not been accepted.

It was a tense moment. I tried glaring at her, but since she was a head taller I had to bend my head backwards to meet her glance.

“You got a problem?” she said.

“No, I don’t have a problem,” I replied, as evenly as my quaking voice would allow. But I had been unjustly accused of something I hadn’t meant; I was trembling with frustration.

A few minutes later, at the checkout counter, the young woman stood in the next line. I had to set the record straight. I walked over and said, “What happened over there?” She said, “You walked right past me like I wasn’t there. You disrespected me.”

“I didn’t see you. I’m sorry. I meant no offense.”

She smirked. “It’s not like I’m not noticeable,” she said.

“No,” I smiled. “I was in a hurry.”

She nodded.

And that was that. Except that later, I suddenly realized what that woman’s everyday dealings with white people must be like. And I had the strange desire, in the unlikely event of encountering her again, to call her my friend.

*****

Some weeks later, my husband and I were walking in the downtown part of our city, and I heard a voice call out, “Hi!” And there she was, in her meter-maid cart, smiling the broadest smile I’d ever seen. The words were out of my mouth before I knew it: “Oh, it’s my friend!”

She looked younger, happier, not the guarded, angry person I’d encountered in the market. Would it always be so easy to find a common human bond? Perhaps not. But I resolved to continue trying.

Stephanie Friedman
Berkeley, California

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