One day...

One day I was walking back from the grocery store, several bags in hand,

when I stumbled upon a man sitting on a stoop, at the corner of an old, run-down liquor store that had been out of business for months.

Now the man seemed as though he was middle aged but, the bags under his eyes and dirt on his face added a few years on him. He had on black boots torn and scuffed at the sides, dark jeans that were dingy and frayed at the cuffs and a long trench coat that was three sizes too big for him.

But he was smiling…

Like he had just found out that his daughter graduated from college or that his wife was in the hospital ready to deliver his baby or like…

I don’t know…

Whatever it was, it stopped me in mid-step. It was like an inner peace that I’d never seen before,

Never witnessed,

 didn’t even think existed.

So curiosity and I took a step closer, leaned down towards him and asked him, ever so softly,

“Why are you smiling, sir?”

He didn’t answer. He just sat there in a daze still smiling. So I put my bags down and decided to sit on the stoop next to him and waited patiently for him to think a little bit. It was quite a while that the fierce winds were smacking the cheeks of my face so I proceeded again to ask him the same question, this time more stern.

“Sir?”

He shushed me.

“Why are you…”

He shushed me again, this time bringing my volume level in balance with his.

“Just look,” he said pointing to the people in the streets. They were arguing. The lady with the two kids on her side thought that the man walking past her bumped her on purpose. She continued to call him inappropriate names, and threw out slanderous terms, covering her children’s ear. I thought he must have been pointing to the couple making out on the street light pole so I tapped him.

“Sir?”

“Keep looking”, he said.

Sirens and ambulances were approaching the corner,

A lady walked by with an amputated leg,

Someone just lost their wallet,

“I’M HIV POSITIVE,” she was talking to her friend on the phone and began to cry hysterically

I found more and more things that made me wonder why someone would smile at this.

Pain

Misery

Loss

Greed

Lust

I became aggravated at what he was showing me and I told him no one can smile at things like this.

 “This is why I’m the luckiest man alive,” he said.

I was still confused.

He took a while before he opened his mouth and when he finally did I couldn’t help but hold his hands…

 “I have the air in my lungs which circulates in my body, every day I am here I am reminded of how much other people suffer and I am blessed. I don’t take anything for granted. I am alive and well. And though I don’t have much I know I am blessed because I am still here. Nature takes care of me, I have water when it rains and just enough food in this cart to last me a meal a day. I can’t complain because I know I have a purpose on this earth. I am ready to go whenever it is my time. But until then I will smile because I am living.”

My eyes dazed into his, feeding into his every word because

It was air

It was life

It was love

He told me to take a breath in and realize what I have.

As I looked as this man, I was still at awe that he found happiness in being poor. He didn’t complain about life or his situation or that he hadn’t washed or eaten or slept in a bed or…

I didn’t say much after that but…

“Thank you sir,”

I left my groceries next to him and left.

Every day I would visit him, sit on the stoop next to him, and watch the world in front of me.

I soon began to smile.