Isaiah

I woke up the other day thinking about him. The funny thing is I’ve never met him. No one has. 

A few years ago in January after a women’s meeting at church, our meeting coordinator asked a few of us stragglers to clear out the treats and snacks that had been brought for the meeting. No one wanted them (January Mood), and so she insisted we take them, and “at least give them to a homeless person”. And how can anyone say no to that?

He was laying in the recessed window outside a restaurant I loved. And once we felt comfortable from afar that he didn’t look dangerous, we approached and asked if we could share some food with him, explaining what treats we had and asking what he wanted.

Side bar: the fact that someone is hungry or down and out does not rob them of the dignity of choice. I learned that in early years dealing with the homeless in DC. Side bar end. 

He was friendly and engaged, asked us questions about ourselves, the meeting we had been at, our church. Then he told us his story. He’d had a pretty good life: a job, a home, a wife. They had been pregnant. A boy. They were going to call him Isaiah. 

But Isaiah came with a storm. Things went wrong, she almost died. Isaiah only lived a few minutes. 

Somehow after that, everything was broken. One mistake leading to another until you’re sleeping in a restaurant window in Tribeca, and your old life is so far behind it doesn’t even seem real. 

I remember his face when he says Isaiah. That one look of such intense longing. That maybe if Isaiah had stuck around, everything would be ok. 

Or maybe not, who knows? 

Today when I thought of Isaiah, I was reminded that sometimes all it takes is one moment we don’t see coming to change a whole life. Makes you think the next time you look a person in the eyes: what was the moment that changed you?