Too busy with myself to notice goodness in another

16. When I was about 10 years old, my mother took me along to visit a friend of hers who lived in a tiny town called Ten Sleep about 60 miles from our home in Greybull. It was summer. Schools were let out; dads were working, and warm Wyoming days stretched endlessly on.

 

At this visit I learned that my mother’s friend had a little boy named Dana, who was two years younger than I.

 

Nowadays, some 45 years later, I can tell you that I was a self-absorbed little kid stemming from a disturbance in my own incomplete sense of self. As yet, this is the best description of me I have ever heard, and it comes from the “narcissism” section in the field of psychology.

 

Back then, at age 10, I was busy being myself and sorting out my world as best I could. I was my own narrator, so, my interpretation of things was often well off the mark. At root, I didn’t think anyone except my grandfather liked me very much.

 

I didn’t so much meet Dana as I found myself in the midst of his openness, his friendliness, his welcoming heart. He instantly made room for me and wanted to play. His undiluted joy was contagious and I felt, of all things, comfortable with another human being.

 

I can remember that we met up two more times – once in my town, and once at the swimming pool in Basin. In Greybull, we walked and talked from the City Park in the south end to the grade school to the north. In Basin, of course, we swam at the outdoor pool next to the gym and jumped off the high dive – our boney little bodies hardly registering a splash – and surreptitiously peed through our swimming trunks in the shallow end.

 

I had never been so pleased to know someone … to be in the company of someone who seemed to possess such personal strength, but who would only use it for good.

 

As it turned out, Dana and I never crossed paths again. Other than those three very impressive days, our circumstances would never pair us again. There were three Wyoming high schools between Greybull and Ten Sleep, and, of course, little kids don’t plan trips to visit friends.

 

At this writing, it has only been a few days since I learned that Dana died in Texas at the age of 19 in March of 1979. Me, I was busy with myself that month, in another country, studying to be a pastor. I didn’t get the news of his death until 33 years later.

 

Unfortunately, I realized, I have been busy with myself a lot since the day at the Basin pool. So busy that I did not realize the gift that those three days of acceptance had been to me. I understand that I was just a little kid back then, but I can’t help feeling stupid – and feeling a loss.

 

I mention this to students of the inner life because a twisted side-effect of concentration on one’s inner life is narcissism: Being so busy being yourself that you fail to notice the gift that others are in your life. I wish you had met Dana. He was a great example in this regard. Me, not so much. T.