The Noticer

In June of 2017, Major League Baseball Umpire John Tumpane was walking across the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was returning to his hotel after jogging and lunch, thoughts of umpiring the evening game in his mind. 

Suddenly he noticed a woman climbing over the railing of the 79-foot bridge.  He asked other people, “What’s this lady doing?”  They replied that they didn’t know. Tumpane broke into a run. Placing his hand on the woman’s shoulder, Tumpane asked her, “Hey, what’s going on?”  She replied she was just trying to get a better look at the city from the other side of the bridge.

 Observing that the woman was standing on a mere one-foot ledge, Tumpane knew she wasn’t recreationally sightseeing. Grabbing the woman’s arm, Tumpane offered to buy her lunch and talk things out. She refused and told him to let her go.  Tumpane later recalled thinking, “Not on my watch, please.”

Tumpane wrapped both his arms tightly around her, and multiple times she let both her feet dangle off the bridge, making herself dead weight. Imploring her, “Don’t do that, don’t do that,” Tumpane asked others nearby for help.

“I couldn’t tell you how long we were waiting for everyone else to get in place,” Tumpane said. ‘Obviously another power comes into be when you’re hanging on, and you know what the alternative is of your letting go and not having other people to help you.”

After the woman was safely down from the bridge and lying on a mat, Tumpane sat beside her. The woman said, “You’ll just forget me tomorrow.”   He replied, “I will never forget you.”

Arms shaking, Tumpane placed a call to his wife to tell her what had happened. Later that evening, while performing his umpiring duties at PNC Park, his eyes were drawn repeatedly to the Roberto Clemente Bridge, visible from center field.

Tumpane said he was thankful for a good outcome, never expecting to save a life earlier that day. Refusing to call himself a hero, he just said he saw a situation where he knew he had to insert himself.

The key takeaways?  Tumpane was a noticer, a thinker, a helper and a doer.  And a rememberer.

John Tumpane’s story reads like a how to template for almost any situation where someone is struggling.

Notice them, think about them, offer to help, take that offer to a ‘doing’ level, and then don’t forget them the moment the immediate crisis is over. Earthquakes have aftershocks, and it’s the same with people.

God is the perfect noticer of our grief and sorrows – “You number and record my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle—are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8

We should strive to be noticers.

 “Let me know if there’s anything you need may be the polite thing to say but that doesn’t make it the right thing to say. The noticers, the thinkers, the helpers, the doers, they are the ones that can change the world because they see the need, they make the time, and they change a life.”  Nina Deibler

For me, I have a noticer in my life who knew that there would be thousands of tears in my bottle for years to come after my husband died. She noticed me crying, overheard me complain that napkins were hurting my nose. She didn’t say, “Let me know if there’s anything you need,” which would have put the burden on my sleep deprived mind and broken heart. She promptly ordered me a six month supply of tissues – with lotion, so my nose is not rubbed raw.

Today is my wedding anniversary, and three special noticers bought me flowers, knowing I wouldn’t receive any from my husband. It meant so much to me to not be forgotten. Some noticers sent text messages to remind me that they knew this day would be a challenge.

Grief has no expiration date because love has no expiration date. Noticing shouldn’t either.

God bless the noticers.