Last night I was at the grocery mart buying toothpaste because no one likes plaque or gingivitis. I left the store and was driving out of the parking lot and noticed a man with a sign huddled up against the brick of the building he was next to. He had a sign asking for spare change. He is homeless. It was around seven o'clock in the evening and last night it was below zero degrees. I pulled my car over and got out and walked up to the man and gave him a couple of dollars, he held my hand for a few seconds longer than I expected he would and he looked into my face and said, "thank you". There were tears in his eyes as he repeated, "Thank you so much." I walked back to my car, slowly, desperately wanting to turn around to go talk to the man, but ultimately chickened out at the last second. I don't make it a habit of conversing with homeless people. If I feel inspired to, then I'll give them my change, but that's usually the end of it. This man, however, I can't seem to get out of my head. He was middle aged, probably in his mid to late forties. I just wanted to know the events of his life that led up to him being huddled in the winter cold, trying to keep warm on the side of a building, in the dark. Yes, there are shelters, and soup kitchens, and yes, McDonald's and Walmart are always hiring, but that's not the point. Who does this man belong to? Does he have children who are looking for him? And, does he miss them as much as I miss my child?
I was talking to a guy-friend of mine about this man and my friend was alarmed to hear that I almost stayed to talk to this gentelman. My friend went off on a tangent about all sorts of bad that could have befalled me and said that I need to be more careful and that I could have been killed. I understand where he is coming from, those are the same fears that got me back into my car last night, but I still feel like I should have stayed to talk to that man. I can't explain my reasonings for feeling this way, it's all definitely out of the ordinary. I would like to think that it has nothing to do with placing my child for adoption and this need I've felt, ever since, to nurture those that are helpless. This homeless man, I wouldn't call him helpless, he is able to apply for a job at the previously mentioned businesses, so clearly my need to nurture the helpless has nothing to do with my wish to have stayed to talk with him. Instead I feel like I understood him on a level that I've never thought to try to understand him, or anyone, for that matter. And, yet, I don't know what that level is that I understand him on.
Have you ever felt desperate to connect to someone? I can't help but wonder how long it's been since that man felt a hand grasp his back because my hand grasped his hand back. And, maybe that's what is so alarming to me and, maybe, that's why I can't get him out of my head. I understood him on a level that I was not intending. He made me feel something that I wasn't expecting. This all sounds crazy and delusional, I understand that, and I don't think I'm explaining it correctly. He doesn't know anything about me and I don't know anything about him. We are two strangers living on the same planet. He doesn't know that I just placed my first born son for adoption and I don't know the events that led to his no longer having a home. We are two people who exist on the same planet who are searching for the same thing, home. Home is where your heart is and my heart doesn't feel like it beats anymore.
I feel empty and scared. I don't sleep very well anymore and when I am sleeping I dream of my baby boy and when I wake, he isn't there. I don't eat a lot, I don't have an appetite for anything, so when I do eat it's because I'm forcing myself to do so. I've heard of grief being described as a wave. I'm floating along in the water, fine with my place in life, and out of no where comes a wave and it crushes me into the depths of the ocean and I'm struggling to resurface. I finally make it to the surface and I'm haggard and tired and eventually the water becomes peaceful again and I am floating, only to be swallowed by another wave. That's a good way of describing grief, I think. It makes sense to me, that way. Only, last night, someone grasped my hand and pulled me out of the void I've been in and I noticed someone else other than my self and I saw the grief he's experiencing and I knew what he felt in that brief moment our hands were grasping one another's. I should have stayed to hear his story, I believe it would have done me a world of good to step out of my own grief and share in the grief of someone else.
I don't care if he bought booze with those two dollars, I don't care if he did anything else stereotypical of what we ignorant people claim the homeless do with the money we give them. I don't care what he did with those two dollars. For one long second last night, I connected with someone again and I don't care what he did with the two dollars, I just wished I would have stayed to talk with him.
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