• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I found myself thinking a lot about Kitty, and about her neighbors in New York. What transpired there felt utterly foreign to me. I couldn’t imagine this happening in North Texas. Where I lived, people felt a strong sense of community while also recognizing that they would often have to handle their problems and emergencies all on their own. This sense of both fellowship and self-reliance was necessary in a sparsely populated rural area.

Whatever danger or challenge you faced, you couldn’t just dial 911. The nearest police or fire station was too far away. So, at least initially, you would have to deal with it yourself or quickly seek help from your closest neighbor, whose home might be a mile away. By necessity, we had to be self-sufficient. But we also knew that if we needed help, we could turn to our neighbors and they would do their best.

It saddened me to think of these people in New York, in such close proximity to a woman being murdered, and choosing not to help. The police were just a few blocks and an easy phone call away. I couldn’t fathom the human values that would allow this to happen. I had never been to New York—in fact, I wouldn’t make my first visit there until I was thirty years old—and it was disturbing to me to hear that this could happen in a big city. I talked to my parents about how things seemed so different in New York compared with what we believed and how we lived in North Texas.

I made a pledge to myself, right then at age thirteen, that if I was ever in a situation where someone such as Kitty Genovese needed my help, I would choose to act. I would do whatever I could. No one in danger would be abandoned. As they’d say in the Navy: “Not on my watch.”

I NOW know, of course, that a great many New Yorkers have the same heartfelt urges to help others, and the same sense of empathy, as people anywhere else in the country. We all saw that on September 11, 2001. And I saw it again, firsthand, when Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson, and it felt as if the city rose up at every level to help our passengers and crew.

But back when I was thirteen, and Kitty Genovese was in the news, I felt this real resolve. It wasn’t anything I put in writing. It was more of a commitment I made to myself, to live a certain way.

I’d like to think I’ve done that.

I’ve come to believe that every encounter with another person is an opportunity for good or for ill. And so I’ve tried to make my interactions with people as positive and respectful as I can. In little ways, I’ve tried to be helpful to others. And I’ve tried to instill in my daughters the notion that all of us have a duty to value life, because it is so fleeting and precious.

Through the media, we all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment. We’ve all read the stories: the man who jumps onto a subway track to save a stranger, the firefighter who enters a burning building knowing the great risks, the teacher who dies protecting his students during a school shooting.

I believe many people in those situations actually have made decisions years before. Somewhere along the line, they came to define the sort of person they wanted to be, and then they conducted their lives accordingly. They had told themselves they would not be passive observers. If called upon to respond in some courageous or selfless way, they would do so.

Lorrie and I have done our share of very small things to help the greater good. A year ago, we were stopped at a red light in our hometown of Danville and we saw a female pedestrian in her late forties walking her small dog across the street. Lorrie saw the driver in front of us about to make a left turn. “He’s going to hit her!” Lorrie screamed. “He’s going to hit her!” And he did.

It was unclear to us whether the driver of the car was not paying attention or if the sun was in his eyes—but the woman was knocked unconscious, and her