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In my hometown, there is a road. It is just like any other road: street lights, cars, trash, and houses lining the sidewalks. If you were to drive down it for the first time, you probably wouldn't have noticed the lonely faces that run along the street, amongst the garbage.
I must drive down this road every Wednesday and Friday to go to physical therapy. I stare out my tinted window, staring back at the lost souls rummaging for food, change, and anything beneficial to them. I like this road; sure, it's filthy, it's smelly, it's not pretty to look at, but I still like it.
I like it because I see the true face of the world. Life isn't about who has the most money, flashiest cars, name brand clothes, or anything of the sort. Life is about who has the wisdom, the stories, and the memories to repeat to the young. All of these broken people have stories.
They have memories and experiences that may never be known. The limping man who digs through the trash has a story, a love, a family, but yet there he is, left on a road scavenging through a pile of litter, hoping for some food. There's a woman, in rags, with two kids clinging to her side crying desperately for warmth. She has a family, she has a story. But the world will never know it.
As I listen to the song on the radio, hear my dad shifting gears, I stare out the window. My heart breaks for the girl curled up on the corner, sleeping with a newspaper spread over her legs. I turn away to see an elderly citizen try to cross the perilous street in a motor-wheelchair.
My life has always been in the fast lane, but when I drive down this road, I see the lives of the broken. They wander, they search, but yet their existence is not known.
I'm slowing down my life. Will you?
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