Young Painter

Earlier this year, my husband and I noticed a dark water spot on our great room ceiling where the ceiling meets our fireplace. That observation precipitated some expensive chimney and roof repair. After we were certain that the leak was fixed, we pondered how to best and safely fix the large stain on the 18-foot-high ceiling.

“We will have to rent scaffolding to fix the sheetrock and then repaint the entire ceiling,” my husband said. “Let’s just hire a painter who has scaffolding to do it for us — ceiling and walls. That kid who pressure washed the house in December said he did some painting, too. We could call him.”

I dug out Dillon’s phone number and called him.

The following week, Dillon showed up on time in a big gasguzzling truck with a Florida license plate. He was very young, and very thin, and had a deep tan that hinted of time spent on a sandy beach somewhere.

He offloaded a bunch of equipment from his truck, then, together, he and I moved all the paintings from the walls and all the furniture from the room. He put down drop cloths on our wood floors and exhaled.

“I’ve got to go back to the house to get the scaffolding,” the young painter said. “I couldn’t get it all in the back of my truck this morning.”

An hour and a half went by, and the young painter had not returned. Then I got a text from him that read, “I’m sorry. I’ve had a problem. The scaffolding won’t fit in the back of my truck, so I can’t bring it to your house today. I usually have access to a trailer, but I don’t today. I won’t be able to use the trailer until next week. If you want to fire me, I understand.”

I called him, and after several rings, he hesitantly picked up.

“I understand about the trailer and scaffolding, and we can wait on that, but our house is torn apart,” I said. “Why don’t you come back and do some of the trim work today. Then help me put the furniture back in the room so we will have a place to relax at night until you can get the stuff over here to finish the job.”

Minutes later, he was back at our house.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the young painter said. “When I realized that the scaffolding wouldn’t fit in my truck and that I couldn’t get the trailer, I just panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want you to yell at me.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Things happen. But I prefer a conversation to a text message.”

He nodded. A few days went by, and my husband and I realized that Dillon wasn’t the greatest painter in the world — far from it. We noticed a drip on a prominent wall and a few drops of paint on the front porch. But slowly, the walls and ceiling were transformed, and things started shaping up in our house.

“He’s a bit of a train wreck, but that’s okay,” I told a friend. “He’s really young, but he’s trying, and that goes a long way with me.”

On one of the last days he worked at our house, he arrived around 8 a.m. I was hungry and decided to scramble myself some eggs for breakfast. The young, thin painter was painting a wall near our kitchen, so out of courtesy, I offered to scramble him a couple of eggs, too. He enthusiastically accepted my offer, and ten minutes later, he was sitting at our dining room table eating eggs and toast as I made small talk. I found out he was all of 21 years old and had moved to Northwest Georgia eight months before. I asked him what brought him here.

“Last year, my girlfriend’s grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” he said. “There wasn’t any- continued from page

one else in the family other than my girlfriend who was willing to move here and help her.”

He paused. “Her grandmother raised her because her mama is an alcoholic.”

Another heavy pause. “Anyway, we’ve dated for almost three years, and so I moved here, too, and together, we are trying to take care of her grandmother while she’s going through treatment.”

Dillon got a far away look in his eyes and clutched the fork. At that moment, he looked more like a 12 year old boy than a 21-year-old adult.

“It’s been really hard,” he continued. “I work as much as I can. My girlfriend helps me sometimes, but she stays home with her grandmother on the really bad days.”

And just like that, I forgot about the paint drip on the wall. He wasn’t a young painter any more to me. He was another human dealing with a significant issue. I tried to utter some comforting words, and I told him how much I admired him for helping in such a trying situation.

I was suddenly reminded that almost everyone is going through something — some crisis — whether it’s related to physical health, mental health, a death, a job, finances, family, relationships, spirituality, or something else entirely. So many of us are facing some traumatic event, or just faced some traumatic event, or are about to face some traumatic event. Everyone needs to exercise kindness, understanding, and support to those we pass by in our daily lives, because we just don’t know what people are managing in their lives.

I’ve heard it said that the cultivation of empathy is our true human work — something we’ll spend our entire adult lives trying to master and extend freely and lovingly to others. I hope Dillon felt my empathy. I hope he left that day knowing that at least one person in the world cares and is pulling for him.