When You're A Stranger

My friend is very sick. I can see it in his face.

Almost every day over this past year and a half, I see him as I'm driving to work, on a particular stretch of the trip. He walks with a cane and wears a baseball cap. He wears a leather jacket if it's cold; shirtsleeves if it's not. He was plump--he had a healthy roundness to him, but he was not exactly overweight. From his facial features, I assume that he has Down Syndrome. I think of him as my friend, even though I have never actually met him and don't know his name. Even though he doesn't know I exist. (Unless he has happened to notice a stressed-out-looking girl driving by in a red car.)

So, nearly every day, while I'm late for work, he strolls with purpose, facing toward me. I can tell how late I am by how far he has progressed down the sidewalk. If he is no longer walking, but instead sitting outside one of the shops near the library, I know I should be very ashamed.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that he looked a little thinner. His face looked somewhat wrinkled. He looked aged. It was noticeable, because he had previously looked relatively youthful. Right then I knew he was either sick or had been sick recently. I didn't think much of it. I guess I had assumed he would recover.

Last week, I didn't see him because I rode to work with my husband all week, and we took a different route. So, when I saw him this morning, I almost didn't recognize him. It wasn't until I had nearly passed him and noticed the baseball cap and cane that I realized who I was seeing. He was sitting in front of a shop. (Shame on me.) His face was not merely wrinkled; it looked like it was completely caving in.

I was horrified and dismayed. "What HAPPENED to him?!" I whisper-shouted this aloud, although I was alone in the car. "He is so sick." I had never before seen a person who I thought was literally dying before my eyes. It crushed my heart.

I tried to pray for him. But it felt like one of those spiritless prayers, because to me, it looked like he was already gone. "Abba, take care of him," in whatever way that could possibly mean.

Because I'm human, I couldn't help but make this somehow All About Me. I thought about how lately I've been feeling scared and alone, with my financial concerns and my mysterious ailment. Feeling isolated and forgotten. (I know I'm not, really.) I thought, if I can care about this man, a stranger whose name I don't know.... If I can care about him and be touched and concerned when he is clearly ill, then maybe a distant stranger somewhere cares about me, too.