Obsolete Word, Enduring Relevance

The word-of-the-day arrived this morning from the Oxford English Dictionary: dade. I'd never read or heard that word (I don't think?!?). I knew of Dade County in Florida. I went to public school with a kid named Vaughan Dade. When I was a kid in Oklahoma, people would say some cowboy on TV had shot a black-hatted guy "daid." That's about it.

Dade, says the dictionary, is "obsolete." But here's the definition of it, its earliest known appearance in 1580: transitive. To lead and support (a person who totters or moves unsteadily, esp. a child learning to walk)

This, of course, had great emotional resonance for those of who have been parents. I well remember our son (born in 1972), absolutely determined to walk, teetering and tottering on his feet, the hands of his mother (or his father) cupped round him to make sure he didn't fall and hurt himself. Such moments are among the wonders of parenthood.

Later, my brothers and I would perform the same service for our father (who died in 1999) and our mother (who died in 2018). Both of them had experienced the Full Meal Deal of declining locomotion: cane, walker, wheelchair. Both took falls--sometimes bad ones. Both, you see, were determined to walk--as determined as any toddler.

Today, at the coffee shop, I witnessed an act of supreme kindness. A local man who has trouble walking came in the shop, took his order, headed out, then returned about ten minutes later--disoriented. Frustrated.

A coffee-shop friend immediately stood up, put on his coat, led the man to his car, took him home, came back and finished his coffee. I said some kind words to him; he waved them off. It's just what you do, you know? Help people who need it?

Actually, it's not what far too many of us do--in coffee shops and elsewhere. Self-reliance and all that stuff. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Asking for help is, you know, un-American!

Except it isn't.

Asking for help is human. Giving it is human. Not giving it is inhuman.

And, of course, this principle lives far beyond the walls of any coffee shop. We need to help one another--whether we've been asked to or not. Whether or not the recipients are "deserving."

So many of us seem so adamantine these days, our political views so firm and fixed that we can sometimes view those on the "other" side as inhuman, as unworthy of our help. They're not "like" us, and so ... you know ...

But this takes me to the other definition of dade: intransitive. To move slowly or with uncertain steps; to toddle, like a child learning to walk. Also fig.

If we live long enough, we will all move slowly ... with uncertain steps ... like a child learning to walk. I've seen it in my own family; I see hints of it--forecasts--in my own body.

For many, many people, however, it has nothing whatsoever to do with age or illness. It has to do with economic or  political or corporal circumstance.

And I believe that as we see others dade, we need to extend a hand--literally, figuratively, financially. It's the only way.

Jack London has a grim story he called "The Law of Life." It's one of his Northland tales and involves a dying old Native American man whose tribe gives him some supplies, then moves on, leaving him to die in the bitter cold and snow. Wolves arrive ... (Link to entire story.)

The old man is resigned--accepts what has happened, realizes his end is near, recognizes the Law of Life. 

Well, isn't it time for a new Law ... one that glows with empathy? One that recognizes that one day--sooner? later?--we will all ... dade.