It had been raining for two days straight with the New Year upon us and the coldest weather of the season moving in, all anyone wanted was to get home.  I walked my normal route out of the office to my truck, letting the day’s events fall out of my mind so I did not bring them home.  As I started to turn towards the lot where my truck sat waiting peacefully for me to get in out of the rain, something no someone caught my eye. He walked towards me in the rain, slowly, as if he was unsure whether to cross my path, turn down the side street or even turn around.  Instantly, as I have many times in the past in our city my mind started to prejudge, thinking of ways to avoid eye contact much less conversation, where is my wallet is it secure, I am out here by myself with this guy, what should I do?  Then it happened as it has many times before; he raised his head from under his rain jacket and with eyes full of hurt and pain asked me “can you help me?’” By general rule, I do not give to people on the street, at least not money for we all know where that goes right?  For some reason this time felt different, I casually replied, “Sure, let me see how much I have in my truck”.  He followed behind me, not too close to be intrusive, but enough to make known that he […]

Read More