The Young Man in the Parking Lot

Just the other day, I was walking out of the hardware store with some gardening stakes and a stubborn sense of purpose when a young man came alongside me. He spoke in hushed tones, asking if I had a little money to spare. The sort of ask you hear more often these days, not just on our street corners with cardboard signs, but up close, at the gas pump, outside the grocery store, or in the parking lot where you’d like a little peace to fumble for your car keys before you get to your vehicle.

Now, once upon a time, I was the sort of fellow who gave without much thought at all. If I had a five in my wallet, I’d hand it over without hesitation. I had been taught in church that generosity was a command, not a suggestion. Whatever the person did with the gift, that was between them and God. My part was to open my hand.

But years in the trenches have a way of closing your fingers. I worked in shelters, transitional housing, halfway houses, and rehabs., And I got to know the stories behind those outstretched hands. I saw the slow grind of addiction. And far too often, I saw faces turn blue from overdoses. I pressed my hands against chests and blew air into lungs while performing CPR, whispering prayers that the paramedics would arrive in time. Sometimes they did. Most times, they didn’t. And after the medics left, after the coroner zipped the bag, it fell to me to walk the body onto the elevator and out to the van as if I were escorting an old friend out the door. And though they were not friends, I did know them. I was, sometimes, the last person they had the chance to talk to in their life. My coworkers would ask, “You okay?” and I’d nod, because the next person needed me, and grief had to wait.

After enough of those walks, a man’s generosity gets tangled up with weariness. You stop seeing need and start seeing memory. So when this young man approached me, he wasn’t just a stranger. He was the ghost of another young man, one I found crumpled on the floor of a housing project, skin gone the color of slate, unresponsive. That face has stayed with me, as all the faces do.

So I told the young man no. He kept walking with me, close enough that my newer instincts flared. I turned, and with a voice sharper than I meant, I told him to quit following me. He stopped. I reached my car, shut the door, and sat in silence, listening to the hum of my own heart.

And that’s when I remembered the old me. The me who used to give freely, who trusted that kindness was never wasted. The me who believed that helping was its own reward. And I wondered, not for the first time, if all those years of serving had made me a better man, or just a harder one.

Faith teaches that we are like clay in the hands of God. But sometimes I think the world gets its fingerprints on us, too. You start out soft, pliable, and eager to be useful. And little by little, the clay stiffens. You become a vessel, but maybe a cracked one, leaking compassion faster than you realized.

I don’t know what the right answer is anymore. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s enough to sit in the car afterward, whispering a prayer for the young man who asked, and for the man who said no. Both of us needing something the other couldn’t give.

Well, that’s today’s dispatch. From the dusty corners and the quiet places, keep the faith, friends, and pass it on.