From a neighbor to a stranger

Samir came into the room where I was visiting with his mom and dad with tears spilling out from his eyes. His hand was on his jaw, and he told his parents, “It hurts.”

Zee told me that Samir had a painful tooth; it had been hurting him for several days.

The family had no money, and Samir did not have Medicaid. (The saga of trying to get Medicaid coverage is another blog post for another day). They had been dosing Samir with children’s Tylenol and hoping the pain would subside on its own.

It would not. I recognized a little boy who had a severe tooth infection. I located a dental clinic, but when mom called, the clinic they had no appointments. I wracked my brain trying to think of who could help me identify a free clinic that would see an emergency patient.

Then I literally smacked my hand against my head. “Duh! My NEIGHBOR is a pediatric dentist. She will know.”

A short text exchange later, Samir had an appointment for the next day at HER office and a proactive antibiotic called into the pharmacy near where the family lived. The dentist practice would treat him at no charge. My neighbor — and her entire staff—were helping complete strangers because none of them wanted to see a child remain in pain because of an inability to pay. “I don’t care if he doesn’t have insurance. I don’t need to know his legal status (though Samir does have a Green Card). No child should be forced to be in pain because of an inability to pay,” she texted me.

I cried.

I’ve been simply floored by the kindness of strangers to this family who has endured so many crises in the span of a handful of months. I have thought about them a lot. Any of these crises happening to a middle-class family in America would be difficult. They might make the family involved go through unhappiness and some stress. But when a series of crises happens in a low-income, immigrant family they are catastrophic. Economic stability when you are low-income is a precarious thing. It can disappear as soon as a single crisis appears, let along a tsunami of them within a few short months.

Stability is not the same thing as economic “sustainability,” which implies the ability to withstand life’s crises over a period of time. In an immigrant family, there often is no extended family surrounding you. You may not have strong, long-term friendships built up. There is no savings account you can use as an “emergency fund.” The families FSTN works with are often taking a daily tightwire walk with no safety net beneath them.

Unless they encounter neighbors who choose to help strangers.

Thankfully, this family has indeed been touched by numerous other families throughout Marion and Hamilton County who saw a stranger and decided to be a neighbor.