By Noah Wilskey

February 9, 2018

Meet Rick,

Earlier this week, after experiencing a pretty irritating headache towards the tail end of the work day. I was coming home on the uptown 6-train. To make matters worse, at 96th street, the train conductor announced “the next stop will be 116th street”. My stop is 110th…great. So I get up and leave the subway to the terminal. Enter Rick, or should I say exit Rick, Since he was shortly behind me in the exasperated crowd leaving the subway. Seconds later, Rick makes a comment in my direction: “Man these subways are just getting worse and worse,” and we proceed to converse on the unreliability of the MTA. Rick then went on to say, “when I don’t have anywhere I need to be, these delays mean nothing” “but when I have somewhere to go-like tonight-i get mad at the MTA.” Rick, as I soon found out, is homeless and has been for the last 10+ years, and was on his way to short-term lodging for the night, where he was looking forward to getting a nice warm shower, after raising enough money for a one-way subway ticket.

After a few more back-and-forths between the two of us, a quiet pause came about. I knew if I wanted to, I could use this short quiet awkward pause to pull out my phone, act like I had something to do and in turn, pull myself out of talking to a stranger - Even if you don’t want to admit it, many of us do this daily. But I didn’t and I am DAMN glad I didn’t, because shortly after this awkward moment Rick said 4 words that I can full-heartedly say a stranger has not asked me for as long as I can remember: “How was your day”. I was thrown off, flustered, lost for words. This man - as I found out, lost almost all of his close family, like his mother and eventually developed a mental illness as a result of these events, which put him out of his security job of 27 years - put everything behind him, to genuinely find out how I was doing. I then found out that Rick is 57 and come Tuesday, he’ll be 58. As the train finally came around to showing up, I wished him a happy early birthday and a relaxing night. He wished me well and then proceeded to say, “I love you” (I could feel he meant it too). And followed up with, “You know why I love you? Because I love me more.” “I love you, because I love me more,”

As I rode those two stops up to 110, I kept picking at and analyzing these words in my mind and realized the importance of what Rick left me with. “I love you, because I love me more.” It was the golden rule, and the vital role that empathy plays in this crazy world we can get caught up in.

When I got off the subway at 110, I felt like I needed to talk more with Rick, about life, about anything and so I waited a minute to see if Rick would be getting off at my stop. No sign. But then, as I walked into to my local bodega (corner deli) to pick up dinner, guess who was there? Rick. Realizing the insane coincidence of running in to him here, I took this as a sign, and asked if I could buy him dinner - as an early birthday present. He agreed and as we walked down the road (to the place he wanted to get wings from), we talked more about our lives. Rick, as I found out, was born and raised in East Harlem and told me that although he’s lost a lot since he lost his mother, he’s happy to have what he needs to live and love himself.

As we were getting ready to split up, I told Rick I hope I see him at the bodega again, asked for his picture and thanked him for talking to me. We then said to each other, “I love you, because I love me more”, and went our separate ways.

Meeting Rick last night gave me a needed wake up call- to be present in the moment, realize the importance of surrounding yourself with people that make you be your best you and make you love yourself, just as you love them.