How we wait

We eat. We work. We play. We sleep. We wait.

Ask people the details of their lives, and waiting barely gets mentioned - though it has a recurring role in the human condition, and these days, in the nation.

When we are young, we wait to become old enough to drive, to live on our own. As adults, we wait to see how our careers will develop, who we will marry. Today, we all wait for the economy to rebound, for jobs to return, for BP to plug once and for all the oil well gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. As Tom Petty sang, "Waiting is the hardest part."

"Americans, we don't like to wait," says Robert Epstein, a lecturer at the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management who studies waiting as it relates to innovation.

Worse still, waiting often involves a situation a person has little control over, such as an impending layoff or a rebounding Roth IRA.

For some Philadelphians, anticipation is a full-time endeavor: Whether they long for a job, a child, an education, or to gracefully move from one phase of life to another, the process can be frustrating at best, lousy at worst. So, is it worth the wait? For most people, yes, says Carol Kaufman-Scarborough, a marketing professor at Rutgers University School of Business in Camden.

"There's the possibility for a better day."

Cara Hourican, 34, has been waiting for a better day - make that a workday - since Jan. 6, 2009. That's when she was laid off from her job in Philadelphia with a fixed-income asset management firm.

She became unemployed, living off her savings, just after taking advantage of post-Christmas sales. "There I was, laid off, with $300 in new shoes in my closet that I still haven't really gotten to wear."

Hourican wakes up about 7:30 a.m., and puts on "enough to be presentable to walk the dogs," she says.

Then she sits down with her laptop computer in her small Queen Village living room and scans websites of companies, job boards, and associations. She fills out applications, writes cover letters, calls human resources reps. Networking fills the gaps.

During busy and quiet moments, Hourican waits. Will she be contacted after completing the application? Will she hear back after leaving phone messages? Will she get a job offer after the in-person interview?

It is an agonizing irony: The further along she is in the application process, the harder the wait.

"I had a phone interview last week, and this week I was waiting to hear if I made it to the next round of interviews," she says, adding she hasn't heard yet. "Nobody shares my sense of urgency in giving me information."

After trying to have a child of their own for five years, the Elys started the adoption process - in 2005.

Andrew, 45, and Nina, 42, turned to China, which they thought was "a surer thing" than domestic adoption. They didn't know that one phase of Chinese adoption has been nicknamed "The Wait."

The Elys applied that fall through the Welcome House Adoption Program in Perkasie. Chinese adoption authorities logged in their application package May 19, 2006, the date that determined their place in line to be assigned a child. Now they're thinking September or October, but who knows?

In the meantime, Andrew is an accountant for a Norristown company and coaches a team in a local youth bowling league. Nina works as a concierge at a retirement community and makes costumes for community theater productions. She checks websites and her e-mail daily for news and to check the log-in dates of those who have gotten their child most recently.

"There's a longing to it," Nina says, especially when she reads blog posts of other parents who have been assigned children and sees their pictures.

"You think, how long until that's me? Will she be here by Mother's Day? Will she be here by Christmas?"

Dash doesn't dash, or even walk - though he so clearly awaits that moment.

At his West Philadelphia house one Saturday, 1-year-old Dashiell Mosley pushes a small wooden chair from the living room to the kitchen. Then, he turns the chair around and makes the return trip as his parents, Joshua Mosley and Sarah Zwerling, stand by waiting for the walking milestone.

The red-haired boy crawls to a little table and uses it as a support to pull himself up. Zwerling sits on the floor a few feet away and reaches toward him.

"Come here, Dash," she says, holding her 3-year-old son, Jasper, on her lap.

Dash turns, but his legs do the splits. Next strategy: an edible incentive.

"Look, Dash. A cookie," Mosley coos.

Dash smiles, and sets forth. His body ripples like a flag in the wind as he takes a step. He is in the middle of taking another when one leg twists, and down he goes.

Down, but not defeated. A tired Dash would have to wait longer to walk, but he at least could achieve one goal right away. He crawls to his mother - and gets the cookie.

In the East African nation of Eritrea, time moves at an unhurried pace. But waiting three years for college transcripts goes worlds beyond unhurried.

"My greatest ambition is just to go to pharmacy school," says Sebah Hagos, his eyes wide, his voice quiet.

Hagos, 35, earned an undergraduate degree in animal sciences from Eritrea's University of Asmara in 2000 and a master's in 2005 from the Netherlands' Wageningen University. He came to the United States to do research for the master's degree and eventually attained the legal status to stay. He now lives in West Philadelphia.

To get into a U.S. graduate program, Hagos' foreign academic credentials must be evaluated to determine if they meet U.S. admission requirements. A credential-evaluating group assessed his Dutch master's in March 2007, but cannot consider Hagos' undergraduate work until that school sends an official transcript.

The problem is, the University of Asmara has yet to send it, and someone Hagos spoke to there said it could not be provided. No explanations. Hagos has asked the Red Cross chapter in Philadelphia for help getting the records.

Hagos, who was born in the part of Ethiopia now called Eritrea, wonders if his student protests against Eritrea's 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia are the problem.

Still, he holds out hope that his transcript will come. Meanwhile, he bides his time doing odd jobs to earn money.

"At least I'm surviving," he says.

It's 9 a.m., and the members of the Cherry Hill Fire Department's Station 22 have been on duty for an hour, waiting for an emergency to respond to.

"Yes, our ultimate goal is to wait for the bell to ring, but we are here to work," says firefighter Brigitte Baumann.

So, Lt. Chris Callan does paperwork in his office. Baumann uses a computer program to draw a map of a nearby strip mall, marking the location of doors, electrical grids, standpipe connectors, hydrants, and other landmarks in case of a fire.

The crew also must make sure equipment is maintained and vehicles are ready to go.

"It's hard to explain downtime to someone who doesn't understand the 24-hour work schedule," says Steve Finkhauser, who has been a firefighter for about 38 years. "There has to be downtime. We work 24/7, but we don't run 24/7."

Besides preparing for emergencies, they might be shopping for dinner ingredients, surfing the Web, working out in the equipment room, or reading the newspaper - which is what firefighter Jon Wood is doing at the dining room table when Station 22's alarm sounds.

This is their moment.

The four firefighters spring up from their seats as though rocket-fueled. They jump into their suits, propped on the floor beside the truck, and drive off in under a minute. Their wait is over - until they return to the station to listen for the next alarm.

Evelyn Jones used to be in the choir of the Jones Temple Church of God in Christ in North Philadelphia, where on a recent Sunday morning she rests in a room near the sanctuary. She also used to sing in a professional choir, the Brockington Ensemble.

"It makes me feel bad," she says. "I really miss my choir - we were like a family."

The culprit? Lung disease and other illnesses have put her on a waiting list for a double lung transplant. Doctors have told her she is "end-stage."

Jones recalls being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease, in 1988. After treatments it went into remission, but it returned in 2005. She matter-of-factly lists the other ailments she's had: tuberculosis and a bacterial pneumonia.

Early in her health troubles, the toughest waiting was for test results.

"It was very trying, but I have a source that keeps me focused, and that source is from above," she says.

Her hardest wait these days is for a call that will tell her a match is available.

In the meantime, she passes time praying, thanking God for her husband of 36 years, Ernest, talking with friends, and shopping over the telephone. She celebrates her blessings, including that she has reached her 63d birthday this day.

The service starts and Jones moves, with help, into the sanctuary. She sits in a pew, her oxygen tank beside her, while her husband stands in the row behind holding her hand.

"I'm like Job," she said. "He said he would wait. You have to wait patiently."