When 2026 was just 10 days old, I found myself standing on a sink in a Greenfield Public Library bathroom. I’ve heard people say that they’re dubious about this new year, so I offer this vignette to celebrate community and compassion.
During a Saturday indoor farmers’ market, I was at the library as a market organizer and to provide live music. People of all ages chatted with friends; I played my fiddle while a group of toddlers sang along to “Wheels on the Bus.” The kids snacked, laughed, shrieked in delight, and circulated in and out of the children’s room. Glorious bedlam.
I noticed one of the reference librarians, Pamela, knocking on a bathroom door and calling out, “Are you alright?” I put my fiddle down and joined her outside the bathroom. We heard someone pounding and yelling for help. Pamela said loudly, “I have a key. I’m going to open the door.” When the door swung open, however, we saw no one, and yet continued to hear pounding and yelling. Then we noticed a ceiling tile had been removed. “I think someone’s up there,” Pamela whispered. A woman’s voice called, “Help! Help! My little girl is trapped!” Pamela and I exchanged expressions of alarm. “Can you stay right here?” she asked. “I need to make a call.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. In a crisis, the human brain can freeze, speed up, and slow down all at once. I said, “Hello? Help is on the way! Is there anything I can do right now?” An anguished voice replied, “My daughter’s trapped!” The woman began sobbing, and my mama bear instinct surged. Before I knew it, I was standing on the sink. In the dimly-lit crawl space, I saw a crouching woman pounding on the wall. “Where’s your daughter?” I asked. The woman said, “He took her behind this wall … he’s hurting her! Can’t you hear her screaming?” My mind did backflips. If a child was being harmed, we needed to act immediately; I considered hoisting myself into the space. Just then, Pamela returned and said, “They’re coming.” Then she whispered, “Ask her name?”
I told the woman emergency services were on the way. “Hang on,” I pleaded. “I’ll stay with you. I’m Eveline. What’s your name?” She faced me for the first time, and said her name. With a jolt, I recognized her: decades ago, she and her family frequented a retail business where I worked as a clerk. When Pamela heard the woman’s name, she simply said, “Oh.” The situation came into focus. I pivoted from trying to rescue a child and instead tried to soothe a distressed community member until professional help arrived.
I tried gentle reasoning: “I think the screaming comes from little kids having a good time here at the library …” My attempt backfired: “You have to believe me!” she yelled. “He’s hurting her!” Given the strange acoustics of the crawl space, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that someone could be on the other side of the wall. The woman began clawing at ductwork and hardware until her fingers were bloodied. I decided to try a strategy I learned in 1986 during my stint as the live-in manager of a 25-bed homeless shelter near Minneapolis when I was 21 years old. That’s the year I learned the last-resort strategy of concocting alternative facts in order to avert a crisis. In other words: lying.
“Hey, listen,” I said encouragingly. “Emergency responders just found another access to that space. Your daughter’s totally safe. She’s unharmed. It’s over.” Just then, several uniformed men stepped into the bathroom. One offered me a hand and said, “Ma’am? Would you like to come down?” I took his hand and said, “More than anything, yes, thank you.” Then he coaxed the woman down. As she was leaving the bathroom, she tugged on my sleeve and said, “You see? Children are at risk.” She pointed to the fold-down diaper changing table, which had prominent warning signs about safety. Puzzle pieces continued to come together.
Emergency personnel numbering seven or eight men were calm, attentive, and respectful. No one used sarcasm, swear words, or taunting. There was no strutting, misplaced machismo, or shaming. The situation never spun out of control. In an era when distressed people are routinely ignored or treated with disdain because maybe they smell funny or seem out of it, these men spoke tenderly and clearly with the woman. At a time when referring to other people as “garbage” due to their appearance is normalized in some circles, what I saw in Greenfield that Saturday afternoon is that love and respect are the best first strategies to address any crisis.
Eveline MacDougall lives in Greenfield.