Post written by Liz Lincoln

Unknown Name Unknown Number. That’s the what the call display reads. But it is a sign of change that I have become somehow eager to answer the phone when it reads Unknown Name Unknown Number. And indeed there is irony in this very phrase.

It used to be that this phrase on the call display meant a telemarketer was on the other end, or it was one of those calls with the endless annoying series of beeps that seem to plague our phone line at various times of night, day, or early-early morning. Over the last few months however, I have come to learn that Unknown Name Unknown Number actually means “Jamaican friend reaching out.”

And the irony in many ways is that I can see by the world’s standards, these people are completely Unknown. And they are primarily considered Unimportant. I find this to be Unthinkable, Unbearable, Undeniably wrong.

Pearl has called me, sharing her pain, her joy, her fear, her needs. Tony has called, sharing his life, his need, his desire, his willingness to work. And tonight, Gary called. I didn’t even know Gary had a phone!

He shared about his Christmas with family, his desire to get back into Special Olympics to play bocce, and that the mobile we made together in November had been torn down by a resident at the Infirmary.

“He is blind.” he said without anger, irritation or sarcasm, all the things I would have attached to such a phrase if the tables were turned. “It was hung too low.” He said.

Just the facts, no hidden meaning attached.

I asked him, in my sensitive “I’m-a-Christian” way, which I find rather embarrassing in retrospect, if there was anything we could be praying about for him. How assuming of me, really, to think that he would NEED my prayer. And yet, he may, but in some ways my gesture felt hollow and naive after I hung up the phone.

“Nothing comes to mind.” he said.

This seems typical of the people I have met at the infirmary. Even though they are in the valley of the shadow of death, quite literally with some residents now breathing only the thinnest wisps of air, dementia upon their shoulder, crippled limbs that no longer have circulation where the familiar spots of gang-green are beginning to appear. Their location down the street from a cemetery seems bitingly appropriate. The valley of the shadow of death is in many ways, their home.

But Gary didn’t call because he was in the valley, or because he wants anything from me other than what you do with friends or family. He just wanted to chat and get the most out of the few cell phone minutes he could afford until they ran dry after 10 minutes. He just wanted to visit.

I never believed for an instant that I would serve at the infirmary, make friends there, and crumple broken-hearted when I had to say goodbye. I never believed I would learn so many names or in such a short period of time, come to know mannerisms, likes and dislikes. I never expected or anticipated it, but the Unknown became Known.