Bystanders

There is a psychological concept called the bystander effect. It's the observation that we are less likely to offer assistance to someone in distress if we are part of a crowd as opposed to when we are on our own. The idea is that we assume that someone else will take action and that we're not personally responsible for the well-being of some stranger. I mention this as a prelude to a resurfaced memory that provides an exception to the bystander effect.

I can't recall the exact location except to say that it was in some International Airport (probably in the U.S.) and I can't say how long ago it was except I was probably between five and ten years old at the time.

Whenever it was, I was travelling with my family (father, mother, sister). At that time, we were traveled frequently for two main reasons. We would visit my father's family in Israel on a regular basis and my parents were travel agents.

In this airport we were sitting together in some waiting area. Our seats were close to a large open area where hundreds of travelers passed each other on the way to their boarding gates.

As we killed time before going to catch our flight, my father became distracted. He noticed something in the distance that bothered him and he couldn't ignore it.

I believe at some point he probably shared his concerns with the rest of us He might have said something like: "Why isn't anyone helping him?" What he had noticed was a blind man trying to navigate his way through that open area without any assistance.

It wouldn't have been much later that my father took his leave of us so he could go over and help that blind man himself. After assisting him in reaching wherever he was headed, my father rejoined us. I don't ever recall him discussing it further.

I've always thought that my father's actions were just a good deed. That there wasn't a need to explain why he would go out of his way to assist a stranger in need. The only thing was that I was missing an obvious connection that my father had with that man.

For most of her life, my paternal grandmother lived with limited sight. As a young mother an accident had robbed her of one eye and damaged the other. Year's later, glaucoma took was sight was left in her remaining eye. For the last few years of her life, my grandmother required regular care and attention from her children and grandchildren. Because my father lived thousands of miles away, he wasn't usually around to participate in caring for her.

I can't say with certainty why my father helped that blind stranger so many years ago. Yet, I can't doubt that his mother was on my father's mind when guiding a blind person like he done before with her.

Why did my father overcome the bystander effect to help a complete stranger? Why did he take on the burden to help out when there were others who could have done so? My educated guess is that it was the closest thing a son could do to express his love for an absent mother.