Just below the radar

I use a shuttle service to get to and from the airport for most of my trips. The driver, I will call him Jorge (for anonymity purposes), is a kind young man from Mexico who is married to a much older woman from Laos - pretty interesting. Most of my morning shuttle runs are at un-godly early hours - 4, 4:30, 5 a.m. We almost always talk on the drive - I think to keep each other awake.

I know, from our conversations, that Jorge and his wife (I will call her Mary) have a full life. They are raising one of Mary's teenage sons together; and a grandson from Mary's daughter - the boy was abandon by his mother 2-years ago. In addition, they both work two jobs - trying to make enough money to start their shuttle service business and then eventually scale back to full time for the shuttle only.

In the interim, Jorge works from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m. delivering newspapers and then from 5-6 a.m. until after midnight trying to get shuttle fares from the airport. He told me this morning that he usually only gets 3- shuttle rides in that entire time frame. "We have to wait in a cue for our turn to get up to the fare line. It may mean we wait 5-hours for one ride."

Mary was working at a motorcycle assembly plant from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and she would join Jorge with the shuttle service for the rest of the evening. The "was" part to my statement is that she just got fired. Apparently she got sick (for three days) and the plant let her go. This after working for the company for over a year.

"Times are tough right now," Jorge told me this morning, "but it will get better." "We don't have health insurance, we are working so hard and barely making enough to pay our rent, and we own money on the van to maintain our shuttle service." I asked him what he thought would change to make things better - he told me that he truly believes that life is all about "hard work" and that he will just keep working hard until "things change."

I said goodbye to Jorge this morning and felt a sense of unease. I believe that Jorge will be successful, he is smart, VERY hard working, and has a huge heart; but, I felt a sense of dis-ease at the fact that life is truly unfair. So many people must work so hard to get any where in life. So many people exist in a world just below our radar screens.

I said goodbye to Jorge this morning and I made a commitment to myself to continue to work toward a world that ensures Jorge and Mary can one day truly reap the benefits of their hard work.