A Thought About The Man On The Side Of The Road

As I drove out to Oshawa to see my mother, the weather was awful. It was cold and the snow flurries were heavy and wet. The highway moved at a snails pace all the way to Ritson Rd which was the cut off I take to get to mom's place. I was thanking God as I rounded the bend and stopped at the red light. That is when I noticed him; a homeless man sitting in the freezing cold slush in a thin overcoat, no hat or gloves, filthy clothes, a long dirty beard and unkempt hair. He looked as if the weight of the world was on him and it made my heart bleed.
Now it's not like there isn't a beggar at practically every cut off along the 401 but either this man was really in need or he deserved an Oscar for the extents he was willing to go to get attention. He was soaked to the core and shivering.......more alone than I had ever seen anyone, more broken than anyone could be. I wondered what circumstances in life could possibly have brought him to this point. Was he a drug addict? A drunkard? A bum? Or someone who had just really had some bad breaks?
Did he have a family somewhere, worried sick over what he had become.....or was he completely alone with no one to care? What horrid thing in life brought this man to the place where he seemed to have given up all hope and was begging on the street.
The man's face will haunt me for a while until I too just forget all about him and get on with my own life again. What a tragedy it is that we have such poor and broken people living among us in one of the richest cities in Canada.
As I passed all the change I could find out the window he reached out, took my hand and said "God bless you, Merry Christmas"
I wondered, as I drove off, what kind of Christmas he and so many others would be having this year.