Posted: Friday, 30 October 2009 10:33AM
Finding Life In The Compassion Lane
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, October 30, 2009
From a distance, the night shadows blurred his features and turned him into a hulking figure at the top of the River Street exit ramp. Yet I almost immediately realized what was happening as I headed home to dinner and wine after a good day’s work.
The man at the top of the exit ramp also might have been headed home. But he had a far longer trip ahead of him than I. Life was not working out for him the way he once hoped it might
My first reaction was that I didn’t want to be bothered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with him and his struggle and his struggle for comfort. So I stopped my Jeep at a distance from the red light. I didn’t want to sense him standing close to my window clutching his homemade cardboard sign and expecting me to help.
I watched him for a very long 30 seconds. The man didn’t move. He just looked my way. I wondered what he was thinking.
Did he think I feared him? Did he think I didn’t care? Did he want a friend? Did he hate the faceless drivers in the cars that passed him by?
I don’t rattle easily, but my conscience started rapidly tapping at the base of my skull and pulling at my emotions. I remembered my own occasional burdens over the years and how hard life seemed to me even though I never found myself in straits like the man along the side of the road. So before the light changed, I started digging below the seat belt and into my pockets for money.
Slipping my car into gear, I slowly pulled into the compassion lane.
The man looked to be in his 40s. Maybe he was older. Maybe he was younger. Truly, I had no clear sense of his age. But I could see that he was aging, losing a little bit of whatever strength he possessed as each second in his life disappeared. Still, he seemed healthy enough to weather the struggle on the street that sent him my way.
Even the strong sometimes get lost.
Although I couldn’t read all the words on his sign, those I recognized spelled out a stark piece of his dilemma. The man’s message said he was “traveling” and that he could use “a helping hand.”
A small red plaid suitcase sat at his feet. The brightly-colored bag seemed out-of-place, more suited to a comfortable overnight stay in a neon-lit 60s motel than to a trip into the dismal unknown of the 21st Century.
I wondered what the man remembered as the good old days.
Stopping my car, I rolled down the window.
“How’re you doing?” I asked.
“Not too well,” he said.
The man offered a weak smile.
I reached out.
He reached back.
“Two bucks,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. “God bless you.”
“Take care of yourself,” I said.
“I will,” he said.
We made eye contact, the light changed and I drove away.
Within minutes I was stopped at another light, checking the cash I had left in my pocket - four additional singles and a ten. Feeling guilty that I had only given the traveler two dollars, I thought about the love that awaited me at home.
I did what I could do, right? I did more than most people. I hope I had helped. But what could the guy buy with two bucks? What does a single slice of pizza and a small soda cost? When I buy pizza I usually buy two or even three slices and a large Coke. I don’t have to worry about the money and usually hand over a 20 when I stop downtown at Sal’s.
If a few other people gave the traveler money on this dark corner of the night, he would have enough for a meal to get him back on the road. He would, wouldn’t he? Where was he going, anyway? What was his name? Where did he grow up? Was anybody worried about him? How did he wind up here? Will his life get better?
Better days will hopefully come his way but I can’t say for certain.
What I do know is that I could be him.
So could you.
The life lesson he shares with us is priceless - a teaching far more valuable than the two wrinkled bills that I handed over to this sad, shadowy stranger on a lost, lonely night in Scranton.
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Corbett
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