I don’t have exact numbers, but I’m guessing my average Uber ride is somewhere around fifteen minutes. I’m often amazed at how much I can learn about my riders’ lives in such a short time.
I picked up Brian. Turns out he attended the University of Alabama for a short time. Since I estimated his age to be around the same as some of my children, all of whom attended Bama. He said Mike Shula was Bama's coach.
He left school and learned everything he could about computers. He's now a software tech. I sensed that he wasn't very happy in that field and felt that AI would eventually end his career. He wanted to change his career path to youth counseling. I asked him why.
"I've been through so much in my life. I believe I could help many more people in a more meaningful way."
"My mom got arrested for prostitution and drugs when I was ten years old. She spent eight months in prison. I had to live basically on my own, even though my mother had a 'boyfriend' who was supposed to take care of me."
"Of course, he was a crack addict and was using the money that was supposed to take care of me for drugs. Luckily, my grandparents from Loxley stepped in and raised me. They turned my life around."
"I started school at Bama, but I knew I didn't have the right mindset for college. I've been very successful, but I know I was meant to help others. I had several years of helping abused children and that's what I want to do."
As if that weren't enough, Brian told me that he was married and the father of a child with special needs. Sadly, he and his wife are getting a divorce.
I asked him if he ever kept up with his mother.
She straightened her life out eventually, but had lost her three-year-old daughter through carbon monoxide poisoning when someone had left a car running in a townhouse garage.
Brian has been down, but I hope and believe he will get up again. His experience and understanding will make a massive difference to those he hopes to help.
That same day, I picked up a lady and her daughter from a hospital. The lady, in her sixties, settled in her seat after struggling to get in the car.
"How's your day going?" I asked.
"Just a little tired," she said. "I've just finished radiation, and I'll be starting chemo soon. This is my eighth different cancer. It is in my bladder and some other areas near there now. The doctor just seems so nonchalant - 'Well, it's back, he says, and it's pretty agressive.'"
Then, she and her daughter began listing a variety of maladies—breast cancer, female cancer, skin cancer, breast cancer again, and on and on. I was exhausted just imagining her stamina.
"I used to be such a nice person. I'm kinda cranky now. I take it out on my daughter."
"She does take it out on me, but I just laugh and we keep going," the daughter said. "We're going through this together, but I know she appreciates my help, so a little complaining is understandable. She's actually amazing and I'm happy to be there for her."
A few days after these two rides, I picked up a gentleman on his way to the VA center. He spent time in Vietnam and stayed in the army for years. He told me how grateful he was for the VA. He battled PTSD throughout his life and spent many years living on the streets.
He now has a small home provided by the Veterans Administration and goes for treatment, all provided to him at minimal cost. But something he told me during the ride will stick with me for a long time.
You may have noticed that I didn't send my blog out last week. Website challenges, my brother-in-law's untimely death, the loss of my daughter's family pet of fifteen years, and various other challenges had gotten the best of me. But I didn't share any of that with my rider. In fact, I had kept up the 'positive attitude' that I'm known for.
He saw through that somehow.
"You've had challenges," he said. "We all have. I can tell just talking to you, though, that you'll get past those things. You may be a little down now, but I know you'll get up again. You always do!"
I was dumbfounded. With all of his challenges, and for once, without my blabbing, he felt something I thought I hid well. We promised to pray for each other.
There's a book I read a long time ago called "When God Winks." I believe he winked at me on that ride. God Bless,
Tommy