Endings

 

Today I saw a man sleeping in his car. I noticed this and as I walked by I began processing this. Why was he sleeping in his car? Did he not have a place to live? Is he just tired and taking a day nap? Then my mind wandered a bit darker. If his life was this dark, why did he continue living without a house and barely scraping by at his age? What drove this stranger I witnessed sleeping today? When life has completely fallen apart, you’ve hit lower than you thought you could go, what keeps you here? What keeps you going? I don’t know this persons life but I my mind began drawing elaborate stories from seeing this and it made me consider my own life in some ways. 

As I pondered this and walked back I looked back in the car again as this was on my mind still. Another glance in the backseat and I noticed a baby seat with a baby also asleep inside it, and the back seats plastered in stickers. It was such a sudden shock of realization of just seeing that this person had a child to take care of that I understood that despite his life being so dark he still cared for this baby that was his. I didn’t expect to have my own query to be answered so suddenly. I hadn’t noticed it before. In this moment I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions and started weeping.

I wish we lived in a world where people with children to take care of didn’t have to sleep in cars.