Letting Dave Down

Guilt, relief, luck, and a personal vow.

Last week, I was running late to meet a friend for a walk. Getting out of my car, I saw Dave, our legally blind next-door neighbor with cognitive issues. He was trying to pry open a gate into the yard of a house across the street. Like me, Dave was a mile away from home. Unlike me, Dave can’t see, was overtly confused, and did not have a friend waiting for him to go for a walk.

It was midafternoon and I was feeling low-energy. I had been looking forward to the walk, and didn’t want to schlep taciturn, hygiene-challenged Dave home in my car. So, I turned up the driveway to my friend’s house as if I hadn’t seen him.

We had a lovely walk, my friend and I, during which I kept shoving my guilty conscience aside.

She was walking me to my car when another car pulled up.

It was Mark, a guy I’d gone to high school with. Mark asked if I knew Dave. Yes, I told him, Dave’s my neighbor. Mark told me he’d looked out his kitchen window and saw Dave wandering around his backyard. Mark sat Dave down, gave him water, and drove him home. The whole time Mark was talking I nodded, a look of concern on my face. I said how kind he was to come to Dave’s aid. In other words, I was a lying phony.

I should have gone after Dave and taken him home. My choice to act like I hadn’t seen Dave was at best ungenerous and potentially dangerous.

But sometimes good outcome hitches a ride atop multiple shoulders. This is not a justification for me not doing what I knew to be the right thing, but a statement of fact. That’s what happened here. Lucky for Dave, lucky for me.

I still feel shitty, but next time, I get to be Mark.