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| My Name is..., December 2024 |
One day a week, I volunteer at a local food pantry.
Today was a holiday event where we served 324 families. I was stationed in the parking lot with a clipboard and the food bank software program loaded on my phone.
It was warm outside. Every now and then a breeze would come though and it was a welcome moment of refreshment. The software was slow and glitchy, so I resorted to taking down names and account numbers on notebook paper, then entering them when I could. The shift was non-stop for about 4 hours.
I was giving a lot of attention to the list on my clip board and working with the software. We tried to work quickly so that people could get their groceries and head home. I wondered if I was making the kind of human connections that I value - the kind where people feel seen.
Then, Diana Hernandez Perez (not her real name) came through. I wrote her name on my clipboard and she said, "Thank you for writing my whole name." I felt her words in my chest and looked up. She continued, "A lot of people only write Diana Perez or Diana Hernandez, but you wrote both of my names. Thank you."
Her words stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon. It was such a small thing to include her full name. Even though I could have taken a short cut. Without knowing it, writing her full name was a small way of seeing her and honoring her.
Such small actions often escape my notice, but in the moment those small actions can be everything. I've spent the afternoon recalling people who know me and call me by my "full name." I am recalling the smallest of moments where someone has let me know that they see me. Best of all, I know in my heart of hearts that God knows our "full names" - each and every one of us.
