Snapshots

"Factual information alone isn't sufficient to guide you through life's labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive a mysteriously useful omen every day of your life."
Rob Brezsny


I feel like my eyes have been opened lately and I am coming out of a very deep sleep. Suddenly I’m having all of these chance encounters with people that I no longer believe are coincidences.

I was riding home from work the other day on the train, when I heard a loud booming voice yell, “Joe” and I was immediately alarmed. I was on the far Sough Side of Chicago, and I was pretty sure I didn’t know anyone in this neck of the world that I wanted to see again.

But I was wrong.

What I saw astounded me. There in front of me was a strapping, well-dressed, 200 hundred pound Black man dressed like he was going to a movie premiere. I couldn’t believe it. When I knew this man he had a major addiction to crack and was also a pretty serious alcoholic. He lived on the streets and weighed about 120 pounds. I truly was astounded.

When I knew him I was managing a large nightclub in downtown Chicago. This guy was like our own personal bum at the time, who would park our cars, run errands, and basically do whatever we needed him to do. In a strange way he was very trustworthy. He basically spent his days and nights working one scam after another, trying to get money for more alcohol and drugs. Even still, I liked him, and actually most people in the neighborhood liked him.

So cut to years later and I’m working as a therapist on the South Side, and here he stands before me. He explained that one bar owner in the neighborhood took a chance on him and gave him a job, and the rest just feel into his place. He was now managing the concessions at several bars, and looked like he was truly a different man. He credited it all to God, but I knew there was also more to the story. Something about someone taking a chance on him again had seemed to awaken something that had lain dormant for quite some time. He had been invited back to the human race, and this time he had decided he was going to do things a little differently.

So we had a nice little chat, and I told him I was proud of him. Eventually we reached my stop, and he yelled “Hold on.” He ran over to me, pulled out a wad of money, and peeled off a fresh 5 dollar bill and handed it to me.

“I wanted to give you the five back you loaned me.”

Now over the years I had given him hundreds of dollars, but that was beside the point. I explained to him that I didn’t really need it, and he looked a little hurt.

“I insist”, he said..

So I took it and he gave me a hug…

”You were nice to me even when no else was Joe, and I'll never forget it.”

And so I exited into the night, thinking I would take that five and frame it. I couldn’t believe the transformation this guy had made, and I was once again reminded that often all we have to judge the majority of people’s lives we intersect with is a snapshot. We make assumptions about them and where their lives may be headed, but we really rarely ever get to know how the story ends.

And that was not the end of this story….I still had to jump on one more bus to get home, and there was a long line of people waiting to get on. I put my card into the machine and found, to my dismay, that it was expired. I didn’t like to carry cash on this trip as I went through some dangerous territory. The thought of walking after a long day was immensely irritating, and I scanned my pockets one last time for posterity's sake.

And there it was, a crisp, clean, 5 dollar bill….

A small thing.

But in that moment, in that time…It mattered a lot to me…..