Lives Worth Understanding

My Project-19 route was a little different this week. Instead of driving from home to home, I spent most of my effort shuttling grocery boxes through the hallways of a Hillcrest low-income high rise for seniors. As I glanced at my recipient list, I read a dozen Soviet-era names that harken back to the October Revolution: Gertruda… Anatoli... Odvar... Leninud...

A sign imploring "No Visitors" greeted me at the entrance. The lobby stood eerily quiet. With my hand truck loaded, I began my rounds. I placed each box at a non-descript apartment door—each resembling the next—then rang the bell and backed up the requisite 6-foot distance.

Invariably, the door would open slowly and only partially as a timid octogenarian peered carefully around its edge. The palpable Covid-instilled fear in this community, the helplessness and isolation it has wrought, startled me every time someone answered my knock.

"I have food for you," I assured, the words gently emanating from behind my mask.

At first fearful, then puzzled, then relieved, Gertruda or Anatoli or Odvar or Leninud opened the door fully and carefully slid the box inside. The words "thank you" inevitably spilled forth—uttered not through the English language but in their appreciative gazes and gestures of gratitude: a hand to the heart or two pressed together as if in prayer.

I returned each gesture and smiled as the door closed just as quickly as it had opened, offering me a hurried glimpse of long lives worth understanding.