The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I passed at man on the walking/biking bridge this morning. Unshaven and disheveled, his clothes in tatters, he carried his possessions in a large green trash bag, precariously balanced on the handlebars of an old battered bicycle.

Spotting Picasso, my sweet King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, the guy growled and spit, then out came a high-pitched sound. “Hi,” he said. “Hi. Hi. Hi.”  He greeted the dog with great joy, and then just kept talking and pushing his bicycle across the bridge.

It took the county almost two years to finish this little piece of the pathway, creating a concrete and white structure that rises up over Sir Frances Drake Boulevard near the Larkspur ferry, continuing to the other side of a mountain leading to San Rafael.

I had practically given up hope that they would ever complete the construction until one day the workers took down the fence gate blocking the entrance to the bridge and officially with no fanfare opened the crossing. When I followed the path it led to a tunnel marked with a plaque on the wall outside.

“When others only saw a mountain, Deb Hubsmith saw a light at the end of the tunnel.”  The Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) plaque thanks Deb for her vision and hard work navigating local, state, and national politics to get the infrastructure project funded.

Whenever I walk, I take time to notice my surroundings and think about the world. While I’ll never know the identity of that homeless bike guy, I was curious about Deb Hubsmith.

I discovered that Deb led the Marin bicycle lobby for years as its Executive Director. She worked to make safer street routes for walkers and bikers and advocated successfully for many projects and programs in Marin, across California, and nationwide.

Her mission: to create a healthier country of children and adults, by creating environments where being active could be the norm – for getting to school, work, or anywhere, as well as for recreation.

She piloted the Safe Routes to School program in Marin and statewide, then spearheaded a campaign to get Safe Routes included in the federal transportation bill. In 2005, Congress allocated $1.1 billion to implement this program in all 50 states. 

She founded the National Partnership, a coalition with more than 750 partners and a 30 person staff. In 2016, they secured $240 million for the Active Transportation Program to be implemented in California. This program awards grants that encourage bicycling and walking especially for children traveling to school and for residents of disadvantaged communities.

Deb Hubsmith was literally a mover and shaker – an avid bicyclist, a yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and a dancer, full of spirit, and interested in improving lives and bringing community people together to make change.  I never met her, in fact, until today, I had no idea such a person existed in my Marin backyard.

I would have liked to take a walk with Deb Hubsmith and thank her for her efforts, but sadly, she died about a year ago at age 46 of acute myeloid leukemia. I am certain that she moved her way directly into that light. 

Amcho

It’s 1945, a train station in Poland.

A young woman, her sister, and their mother, liberated by Soviet troops from Czestochow, a concentration camp about 125 miles east of Warsaw, get off the train.

They look around frightened. Families hug and noisily greet one another, but they stand silent by themselves.

Then they hear the word, “Amcho.” In Hebrew, it means “of the people” or “of the clan.”

Jews chanted this word when lost among people not trusted or feared. If there was another Jew in hearing range, she would know that she is not alone. Amcho.

In that train station, in that moment in war torn Poland, eight Jews who had lived through unfathomable hell, found each other, and walked out into the night.

In their disorientation and despair, they were chased and pelted with rocks by a band of thugs until an old woman dressed in black intervened and offered them shelter.

She stepped out into the street and cried, “Stop it! Stop that cruelty!”

My friend recently gifted me this new word “amcho” and along with it, a link to this stunning simple story that a survivor named Estelle Laughlin told to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

What do we have if we do not have each other? Without a way to connect and establish a sense of belonging to ourselves and to others, we are unidentifiable, inhuman.

Who can we hope to be if we don’t get involved, if we don’t call out and speak out and act up in the face of hatred and fear?

Today, I want to say “amcho” to Philando Castile, the young black man who was murdered in his car by police in Minnesota, while his 4-year-old daughter watched.

I want to say “amcho” to the young woman from Stanford, who was sexually assaulted by a white privileged boy swimmer and then marginalized by a corrupt judge. 

"Amcho" to the 50 gay people who were gunned down while dancing in Orlando and to John Lewis and his Congressional colleagues who staged a sit in to change our horrendous gun laws.

I want to say “amcho” to everyone who feels abandoned, disenfranchised, damaged, and disheartened by all the hatred and injustice around them.

We must seek refuge in our sense of “amcho” and allow healing to happen when we can truly embrace each other and feel embraced.  We are not alone.