I don't know what it is that happens to a man that makes him end up looking like a hobo, carrying a sleeping bag under one arm along side the rush hour commuters in the morning muni commute, but it couldn't have been pleasant. It couldn't have been what this man thought his life would be when he was a child, or where his mother thought her darling son would be when he was seventy something years old. This seventy something homeless man was very clean, having clearly just had the gift of a shower somewhere, he had a plastic comb in his back pocket and his long fingernails had no dirt under them. He sat along side the commuters. Along side women in there high heels with their war paint on their faces looking only slightly different than angry clowns. Along side affluent young men playing with electrical gizmos that cost more than he'll be able to get his hands on this year, possibly ever again. I stepped onto the train this morning with my twenty pound baby strapped to me in his baby carrying device, holding the diaper bag over one shoulder to this scene of commuters. I looked around at the packed train, filled with people, who, I grant you were tired and going to work and probably unsatisfied and wishing they were Angelina Jolie, or that their lovers was, or whatever, anyway, no one moved. I straddled my legs a bit and prepared to start surfing the muni while holding the chunky monkey and his various acuotramount in the bag. I silently whispered 'assholes' to myself as they all pretended not to see me struggle, who who should stand up and offer me their seat... not the twenty something men in suits with i phones, nor the painted ladies, you guessed it. The seventy something year old homeless man carrying his sleeping bag under one arm stood and offered me his seat.
A few stops later the train emptied somewhat and he sat down next to me.
My baby smiled at him, he smiled back.
I said, "thank you so much for giving us your seat, that was very kind of you";
he said 'I may not have much, but I've got manners".
The baby smiled again and put his little head against my chest with his little flirty eyes and toothless grin shining on the man
The man said, "you love your mommy don't you? yes you do, you love your mommy?"; the baby smiled and tilted his little head. The man said, "you have a beautiful baby";
"thank you", I said.
"A girl, right? So pretty.";
"No, actually he's a boy", I told him.
"Oh well, you are going to be handsome when you grow up.", he told my baby; my baby smiled again and put his head against me. "Yes, you love your' momma." the man said again.
The train pulled up to our station and I said to the man, "good luck to you today.";
"Good luck to you." he said.
Now I ask you. I feel like this is the "where's Waldo" of God: in all that humanity, "Where's GOd"? I think God was somewhere between my beautiful son's eyes looking at the beginning of his life, and this old man, looking toward the end of his.
copyright 2007 AVR
