The bum on the corner

I had a moment this weekend.  It was sad and gently ripped my chest open, exposed my heart like chapped lips in a howling bitter wind.

I had to go downtown.  I was meeting B to do a mock walk through for this new business venture we are starting.  I was forced to stop at a light at the end of the exit off the interstate....I was 3rd in line in the left lane and was turning left.

There sat a bum.  He had a sign.  "Anything helps.  God bless you."  All the words were spelled correctly, and he even drew a small cross in the upper right hand corner.  Anything to increase his odds.

He kept sneaking looks at each driver....looking for a signal that they may give him a handout.  I surreptitiously looked in my wallet...2 ones and a twenty.  I pulled out the 2 ones (hey--I am not a saint), rolled them up, and waited. 

My plan was to wait until the light turned green, pull along side of him and hand them over....thereby allowing me to keep driving and not have to make small talk.

He was wearing the requisite beer hat, with long scraggly black hair, an old bomber-style coat, faded, worn-out jeans, and some no-name white high-tops with little sole left.  He had a vacant look, like it had been awhile since his last fix or drink. 

The light changed.  I pulled along side him with my hand out the window.  Surprisingly, he looked shocked. 

In a matter of seconds I took him in....the shuffled gait, the unsteady hands, the bad, broken teeth, the shame, the kindness, the stutters, the addiction, the aura of emptiness and fatigue.  I was assaulted by memories and sadness.  I was beguiled with regrets and awed by the similarities that pervade people with struggles like his.

"Hurry up."

"God Bless You, Ma'm."

"You too man."

and I drove away crying.  That bum will never know what that truly cost me.  Two dollars and a thousand pounds of heartache.

I will continue to give.........to bums,  to shelters, to community shares.........what they choose to do with the money is their business.  Every time I give, I honor that heartache and heal and hope that one shell of a person finds that spark of a second chance.  Even if the second chance is really their third or fourth or fifth..............