Man + Cat

This isn't really a story about a cat. But it is a story about a man.

I saw him last weekend, when I was driving home on a sunny Saturday morning after having coffee with a pal.

This man was standing on the island between two busy roads, near a traffic light. He was around my age, maybe a little older. He had all the sadness of the world in his face, and dirty hands and fingernails, and soiled clothes that hung on his thin frame, and scuffed shoes that backed up to a trash bag which probably held a few miserable possessions. And he had a ripped piece of cardboard for a sign that said "please help" at the top, and "MAN + CAT" underneath that.

It pained me so, that "MAN + CAT"sign. There was no cat to be seen, and I wondered if he thought nobody would help if it was just him, but they might if they thought there was a needy animal involved. I couldn't help him that morning - I wasn't close enough to him to get to my purse and move over the two lanes it would require to hand over some financial compassion before the traffic light changed.

I try to give whenever I see someone like him. People have many different feelings about this; that someone will use the money for drugs or drink, and it will not make a difference in their lives. But here's what I believe: when we give someone like this money, it's not just about the currency. It's a way to  say "I see you," rather than averting our eyes and pretending we're suddenly very interested in the middle of our steering wheel.

We cannot rescue everyone. And yes, there are people who do this artfully, for a living, and are not the needy folks that some others are. But you know what? When there is a person who is clearly hungry, who seems not to have seen a bed or a bath for days on end, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time weighing whether one individual deserves charity more than another. I often repeat something a friend said to me years ago about giving others money: "What's a little to us is a lot to someone else."

I wish that I could have given a little to "MAN + CAT," and taken just a bit of that sadness out of his face, for a second or two. Because I'd like him to know he was worth helping, with or without a hungry pet.

© 2016 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie