The Poor Little Matchstick Girl
When Henry Buhler sold all but ten acres of his massive farmland, a developer bought it, converting it into a subdivision with row upon row of two-bedroom, cracker box houses built to attract young couples who were beginning their families. Within a few short years, the blue-collar neighborhood was teeming with children whose parents were poor and nomadic, renting the cheap houses for only a short period of time. Our neighborhood quickly became a revolving door, with vagabond families moving in and out every three to six months.
Their children freely roamed neighborhood streets, drawn to our home like iron shavings to a magnet, showing up in our front yard seemingly from nowhere and typically around mealtime. They joined us in whatever game my brothers and I were playing that day. When the game ended, Mother emerged from the house giving them a brown paper sack with a peanut butter sandwich and some of her homemade cookies. She occasionally outfitted some of them in shoes and clothes we’d outgrown and gave them toys we’d discarded.
“I don’t understand why you take care of all these ragamuffin children. You can barely feed and clothe your own!” Grammy often complained.
“We’ll manage,” was Mother’s cheerful response.
“You can’t possible know if you’re making a difference.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know, but I was a ragamuffin myself and know first-hand what it feels like wearing ill-fitting, dirty clothes and going to bed with my tummy aching from hunger wondering when I might eat again. So I choose to be empathetic, kind, and compassionate in these children’s lives today and rely on something bigger than me to make a difference down the road.”
Deanna was once such ragamuffin little girl who, one bitterly cold January afternoon, wandered into our front yard where my brothers and I were playing a winter version of dodgeball using snowballs. She was the epitome of a ragamuffin—a malnourished little girl roughly my age wearing a tattered dress and worn out old shoes too big for her feet. She was coatless, and her small hands were gloveless, numb and slightly red from being exposed to the cold. Her face was grimy and bore the most woe begotten look—a look that reminded me of Hans Christian Anderson’s poor little matchstick girl. When I approached her she looked as if she was on the verge of crying, and I wondered if she dared not go home because she’d not sold any matches.
Deanna was sweet, though, and we quickly became friends, eating lunch together at school and jumping rope with one another during school recess. After school we walked home together then sat on my front porch finishing our homework, playing card games and checkers, and cutting out clothes for our paper dolls.
“I don’t think Deanna has toys at her house,” Mother casually mentioned one day. “Just imagine how lonely and boring that must be for her,” Mother said, nudging me to put myself in Deanna’s shoes. “Maybe you could give her one of your dolls.” I did, of course, because I couldn’t conceive not having a doll to sleep with at night.
Just before my elementary school’s annual father-daughter banquet, Mother took me aside. “Not every little girl’s father is like yours. Deanna’s daddy is a damaged man whose soul is broken. When a man’s soul is broken, he’s full of anger—hurtful anger that comes out in what he says and does. Imagine living with a daddy like that,” she said, again asking me again to place myself in Deanna’s shoes. “How would you feel about sharing your daddy with her on the night of the father-daughter banquet?”
Sharing my dolls was one thing, but sharing my daddy? That was something entirely different! I reluctantly agreed, harboring a little childhood resentment. On the night of the banquet, Deanna came to our house. Mother brushed and curled her hair and dressed her in a freshly washed skirt, a starched white blouse, and pair of snug-fitting shoes. We headed to school with Deanna on one of Dad’s arms and me on the other. Admittedly, I was a little jealous of the attention being showered on Deanna—jealous until I saw the joy that flashed across her woe begotten face. I was overcome with childhood tears, and in that moment I understood the difference empathy and compassion can make.
A few days later, I rode my bike to Deanna’s house only to find the door locked and the windows shuttered. Emptiness and pain filled my heart, for she, like the other vagabond children, was gone—gone in an instant. The years, like my childhood, have likewise come and gone. Throughout the years, I frequently thought of Deanna, but I never saw or heard from her again—not until the day of Mother’s funeral.
After the service a vaguely-familiar woman with two small children approached me. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she began, choking back some tears. I’m not sure you’ll remember me. My name’s Deanna.
“Of course! I remember you!” I exclaimed. “How wonderful to see you after all this time. How kind of you to come, but how did you know of Mother’s passing?”
“I saw her obituary in the newspaper and knew I must come and honor her and your family. Were it not for your mother’s kindness and generosity,” she continued, “I surely would’ve starved. Were it not for your father, I would never have known what a kind, patient man looked like. Were it not for you, I would never have known what friendship and belonging looked like.”
We sat on a bench outside the funeral home for quite some time catching up and reminiscing about our childhood days spent playing together. Imagine my surprise when she told me, “I’m happily married to a kind and generous man. We serve as foster parents giving abandoned and wayward children kindness, respect, and a temporary sense of home and belonging. The two children here with me are two of four children we adopted last year, rescuing them from an abusive father much like my own. I do so wish I’d told your parents the difference they made in one girl’s life and continue to make through me in the lives of forgotten and neglected children. I hope they knew their empathetic hearts and acts of kindness were like little candles, each one lighting countless other candles.”
“Not to worry,” I smiled and hugged her. “Wherever they are, they know.”
We exchanged phone numbers and parted ways, promising to stay in touch. I drove home, the sting of grief over Mother’s passing diminishing somewhat. I took solace in knowing mother’s empathetic nature, her compassionate heart, and her simple acts of kindness were seeds of faith—seeds that took root and spread in all directions. Those roots sprang up and made new trees that in turn sent out roots, and there was indeed no end to the impact both she and my father had.
Deanna’s life reminded me that every empathetic heart, every compassionate act no matter how small have a trickle-down effect helping the world at large in unforeseen and countless ways. In our complex world with as many perspectives as there are people, empathy is a powerful force of such emotive value requiring us to understand and respond to the suffering of others. Former President Obama summarized it this way: “Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world—one that makes you understand that your obligations to others extend beyond people who look like you and act like you and live in your neighborhood…and,” he continued, “in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.”
And it is empathy, that uniquely human but powerful force, that ties us together.
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