A Saw The Light From a Cardboard Sign
By Gina Meyers
This evening, while driving home, I took a turn off of the freeway and waited at the intersection light.
What I saw however was beyond ordinary.
What I saw this evening was life changing. And I don’t exaggerate that often. So, I really mean it when I say it, and I’ll say it again for full effect, “life changing.”
If I weren’t to exaggerate, I would say it rather eye opening.
I saw a disheveled looking homeless man, no big surprise there, we see many beggars at the street corners these days. It has become a normal yet grim reality of hard times.
But this man made me laugh. Not just a chuckle, he made me laugh out loud. A downright Jolly Santa belly laugh.
Why you may ask….???
Well, before I get to the hook, writers like to put the bait on the hook before we cast the fishing rod into the water.
So…..
The man looked to be in his mid-to late sixties, semi-stylish hairstyle akin to John Bon Jovi’s hair, long, wavy, but more gray. The man wore black sunglasses, a brownish colored tee-shirt, black shorts, flip flops and he was pacing back and forth in the medium. In the distance, I heard the train whistle and saw the rails go down on the train tracks, whistle blows louder and the lights were illuminating on those rail crossings as it was dusk. The man seemed to kind of shimmy his body and attention to the oncoming train and this scared me slightly.
But he repositioned himself quickly, like a wound-up toy soldier and all of a sudden, we were his target market for his rather large sign made out of cardboard, worn on the edges, but the man was still able to hold and walk from car to car soliciting for money.
The sign itself was larger than the average signs I see the homeless holding. It looked to be about three feet tall, like three or so cardboard box pieces tapped together.
The sign the man held in my humble opinion was eye opening and also made me laugh.
In handwritten BIG BOLD Letters it said:
EX WIFE HAD A BETTER ATTORNEY
Yes it made me laugh so hard, and then I took a sip of sobering reality from that sign.
How often do we play the blame game?
If only…. If only….
If only I were born into the Rockefeller Family, I would have wealth beyond measure.
If only I would have said yes to the date from the computer geek in high school that turned into a successful rocket scientist who won the nobel prize. I’d be married by now with three brilliant children visiting the sunny coast of Tahiti on our summer breaks. If only I played the lottery and used the numbers my Great Aunt Louise said were the lucky albeit holy grail of all lotto numbers, I’d be a millionaire by now. If only I would have invested in Apple stock when I had the chance, I’d be financially fit.
The list goes on and on. Not all blame games involve money, but this one sure did!
In the moments preceding seeing the sign, it brought to my mind a flood stream of bad life experiences that I’ve had, that I’ve simply sterilized in my life.
Isn’t flood stream oxymoronic? Yes, and so was the sign.
Homeless man came too close for comfort to me while sitting in my car.
Why is this lesson so important? It is because we can all relate. We’ve all had bad days where things didn’t go our way, we’ve all had unpleasant experiences, and some of us like Pig-pen, the character in the Charles Schultz Charlie Brown Comic, we all starting living our lives under a perpetual dust cloud. . But I think we are missing the point, some of us mistake a bad day for a bad life.
But how many of us throw daily pity parties? The late Dr. Wayne Dyer, motivational speaker, so eloquently stated: “ Stop looking for occasions to be offended.”
If we live our lives in the relatable realm that my: EX HUSBAND or EX WIFE HAD A BETTER ATTORNEY. Then we miss the point of why we were put on this planet to begin with.
PEACE, LOVE, KINDNESS, as Actor Mike Myers says, “Yeah Baby!”
A relatable bum with a sense of humor. Afterall, I saw the light on a cardboard sign at dusk.
So what does your cardboard sign say?
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