I am at work right now and just about getting ready to leave for the day. A minute ago I got up and put some paper in the printer and then stepped over to the window to look outside.

I am on the second floor of my building and my windows look out over the branches of tree and across the street to an open space with construction materials and buildings.

That open space used to be the hospital I was born in. They imploded several years ago, but I still remember it’s presence. There actually used to be a walkway over the street from the hospital to my office building.

Anyway, that isn’t why I started this.

I looked out the window and I noticed a man walking down the sidewalk. He was tall, thin and barely clothed. It is freezing outside. He was wearing jeans a shirt and a light tan jacket with a ball cap on his head, carrying an umbrella that look like it had seen better days. He himself appeared unkempt. He had a pronounced limp. Not the kind of limp you would associate with an accident, but more the kind of limp that would make you think of a handicap person. I don’t know what that means really. I guess he looked as if he had special needs? Is that the politically correct way to say it?

Again, not my point.

My point is that watching him made heart hurt. He made me want to cry. For all I know he  had been working at the construction site across the street and forgot his heavy coat. He was probably walking to his car that was parked in the parking garage to the left of my building. But I don’t think so. I am warm, I have a coat, a car, a home, and he was limping down the street in barely a thing to go where? To eat what? To get warm how?

UGGGHHHH……and life has me down?