Last night I saw something that really touched me. I wasn't really surprised; just kind of taken back a little.
I drove my mother to meet a group of her friends whom she sees about once a year. The trip necessitated driving North on I95, so it was a nice long drive (if you consider hearing gasps every few miles, and having your arm clenched and scratched by long, perfectly manicured fingernails, nice) with some good conversation.
We reached our destination in about 1-3/4 hours; a little over an hour longer than it should have taken. The holiday traffic was crazy and I changed my route several times so that we wouldn't be late.
She had a good time catching up with her friends and we had a "so-so" dinner at a restaurant that we had high expectations of. I think that may have been because we used to live right near the restaurant many years ago when it was one of the best in the area. The dinner was actually a huge disappointment. Perhaps that is why we took more than half of it home with us; something I rarely do.
On the way home, we have to go through the edge of the city to get to the bridge to cross the river. When we reached the underside of the bridge, we were stopped by a red light at a spot where it is not uncommon to see people hanging around. I must admit that I have gone past this spot so many times that I must have become oblivious to it. This night, there was a homeless man standing in the middle of the street with a sign that read, "Homeless, Hungry, Disabled Vet. Can you help? God Bless."
From the passenger seat I heard another gasp; this time it was not due to my driving but from the sight of that man in the street. My mother started to reach for her handbag, hesitated, reached again.... Then I reached in the back seat to find our carefully secured doggy bags (actually, they were nice styro containers, holding in the heat). When I came up with the box, the man was already standing at my window, as if he knew what I was doing. When I looked at him, my heart sank. I opened the window and he took the box from me and said "Thank you very much and God Bless You."
When the light turned green, I pulled away and as I looked back in my rear-view mirror, I saw the man in the car behind me, also offering something. I turned the bend and headed over the bridge, and out of sight.
We go to the city for the theater, dinner, shopping, fun times. We are so busy that we never look around us. Maybe seeing the city at night, in a different light, makes us more aware of things. Things I didn't realize.
My mother had never seen a homeless person!The crossing was silent. When I reached the other side of the river, I looked over at her face. She was crying. I think it really shook her, actually seeing, first hand, someone so down, so alone, so desperate. My mother was a young child during the Great Depression, still, she was touched.
Seeing my mother so vulnerable is what touched me.
