I first saw Donnie at the local barbershop in January. The snow covering Nashville had closed the schools, giving me an unexpected vacation. I had been waiting to get a haircut for a half-hour or so while the barber finished up the only other customer in the shop. Donnie walked in and stood in front of the chair as the first customer was brushing the hair off of his coat. He was tall and thin, and walked almost awkwardly upright. He explained that he needed a haircut, then proceeded to sit down for his purchase. He had such a severe speech impediment that it was extremely hard to understand what he was saying. The barber, Abe, explained to him that he would have to wait his turn. Abe spoke in the same way that a mother would have explained it to her pre-teen child. Despite his trouble communicating, Abe seemed to understand everything he was saying. After getting frustrated over the wait, Donnie said, “I come back,” and walked back out into the cold. Abe went on to explain to me that Donnie lived nearby and walked everywhere. We talked briefly about him before being carried away in conversation.
I started noticing Donnie much more around the neighborhood after that. I’m sure he had always been there, it just took meeting him to notice.
~~~~~
“Can you help me?” Donnie said.
“What do you need?” I asked.
Donnie replied with a sentence that I couldn’t understand with the exception of the words “move” and “apartment.”
After repeating what I thought he said, Donnie shook his head in frustration.
Finally I said, “I can’t understand you.”
He replied with the same sentence, only louder.
“I’ll be glad to help you later, but I’ve got to go to work right now.” I replied.
“I come back tuhmowow,” he said. Then he walked away.
~~~~~
Today was a routine Saturday. By “routine,” I mean that nothing went as planned and I still have a full list of things that were to be today’s agenda. I was in the yard working on a friend’s car when Donnie walked up – more than a week after his first visit.
“Can you help me?”
“I sure can, but I have to finish this car first.”
“OK. I come back”
~~~~~
Given my previous experience, I didn’t expect to see Donnie again for a while. Much to my surprise, that familiar knock on the door left little doubt that we had company. Frustrated by another interruption, I answered the door, put on some shoes, and faced the consequences of my words. I had no clue where we were going or what I had agreed to do. All I knew is that “it not far.”
Donnie shook my hand and asked my name, what year I was born, my wife’s name, what year she was born, where we went to high school, where we went to church, and a wealth of other questions. He told me that he was 57, where he went to school, where he went to church, and that he lived with his sister.
Giving me turn-by-turn directions, we reached our destination, which was only a few miles from our house. By the time we got there, I was able to make out some of what he was saying. We were at his uncle’s house who had recently passed away. After a little trouble finding the key in his bag of things, He unlocked the door and started loading a few leftover things from the house into my truck. After getting almost a full load, Donnie motioned for me to follow him back into the house where he led me to a wall-sized oil painting of a sailboat on the sea.
“Will you give dat to your wife? She like dat.”
Taken back by his innocence and kindness, I smiled as I told him, “I sure will Donnie. I think she’ll like it too.”
We left the house with my truck bed full of things from Donnie’s uncle’s house. Just as before, he gave me turn-by-turn directions as to where we were going. A few minutes into the ride, I realized that he was saying “Church of Christ.” I wondered to myself why we were taking this load of mostly junk to a church. After all, Donnie had made multiple trips to my house and there was such a sense of urgency when he asked for help.
As we pulled into the church parking lot, he pointed to the drive-thru awning at the side entrance. I slowed to a stop right before seeing a sign on the door that read “Donation Drop-Off.” With that same sense of urgency, Donnie got out of the truck and began unloading the things from the truck. I stalled for a minute or so and literally fought back tears. Today, God sent a middle-aged mentally retarded man to show me just how much I lose focus on love.
Here's a pic of the painting. Donnie was right. “She like dat.”
