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I saw a man on the side of the road recently holding a sign that read, “traveling/hungry” and as I waited for traffic to move I could not help but think maybe I should give him $20 for the $20 would not be a great loss for me; but I also had my wife and beautiful granddaughter in the car and could not help but think, “could he be dangerous, or is it just a scam, maybe he smells” and I drove on. We soon reached my son’s large home and his pretty wife was waiting for her precious daughter and I wondered where the man on the side of the road would sleep tonight or if he would be hungry. I looked at my son’s huge house that was home to three people and wondered if the man on the side of the road had ever been inside such a home. What was his story? He was just like me, in that he had a head and a heart, a soul and a name and someone may have loved him and he someone else. We were just the same------on the inside at least. We were just packaged differently. It is easy for me to think he probably had a drinking problem or drugs or legal or mental but maybe just maybe, he was caught up in events that he had little control over and there but for the grace of God or karma the man on the side of the road could be me.
When we arrived home at dark, we had already eaten a huge lunch and neither of us was hungry but as habit dictates we had to eat something. Would it be a roast beef sandwich from the left over roast at lunch or would the corn beef be more interesting. The 12-grain bread was a bit old but our favorite, although the plain wheat was still soft and fresh. Oh, so many decisions we have to make. But what about the man on the side of the road? What would he eat or would he. It had been raining all day and as we drove away from the man on the side of the road, I looked in my rear view mirror and he had sat down, maybe just too tired to stand any more and maybe just at the end of his road and he could not supply the energy to do otherwise. Was he just a bum or was he just out of luck. There are many that might say, “I made mine by hard work and perseverance” or “everyone has the chance to make it” or “you have to be tough in this world” “everyone makes choices” and on and on. But who is to say that maybe the man on the side of the road had at one time been successful himself but things changed and now he holds a sign that simply says “traveling/hungry. I wondered who might pick him up? Would it be someone that might harm him; would it be someone in a fancy car; would it be someone closer to himself that might relate with his situation. One thing that I know---it was not I for I passed by and that chance for me to respond to another fellow human being has gone. Oh, I will soon forget the man on the side of the road but what damage have I done to my own spirit? Did I miss a chance to help another simply because I was afraid or did I not want to think I was being taken in? I do know that the spark of humanity that could have ignited me to offer something small faded. I left the man on the side of the road, holding his sign waiting for a better person to come along.
