The Heart Calls Out To The Mind & The Soul Listens

The Guilt that Feeds Compassion 190917

His eyes, as he looked back at me, laid bare the desolation that echoed back from his soul.

His lips, parched, failed to form the words his body so desperately needed him to say. Hope was lost. There was no fight left.

I turned to approach him; it was as if something ancient from deep within had taken over and was carrying me toward this feeble frame, in a dark corner, on a busy street, in the dead of winter.

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a few crumpled notes and loose change which I held out to him but still there was no change in his demeanor. Then slowly, eyes still fixed upon my face, he meekly lifted his small hand toward his mouth gesturing for something to eat. Moments later I found myself again before him, a warm sandwich in one hand and a cup of hot chocolate in the other. I knelt beside him and offered him the food expecting him to leap up to receive it but he was too weak to do that, instead I had to feed him as I feed my four year old when we share a plate of food in front of the television sometimes when I get home late from one of those particularly long days at the office.

"How old are you son?" I asked.

He could not have been more than five or six.

"I don't know master." He replied. Those words tearing into my heart like the jagged edge of a rusted dagger.

"The last time I asked, my sister said I was 4 but that was long ago." He said, gazing into the distance.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"My mother called me Iqhayiya lam but here on the streets I don't have a name. People call me different names." He said.

"Where is your mother?" I asked.

"She is where I want to be." He responded.

"Where is that?"

"In heaven..." He replied.

"...that's what my sister told me."

"Where is your sister?" I asked.

"She is with my mother now. I told her to wait and she said she would, but she left me anyway." He responded with a distinct hint of disappointment laced in his voice. Do you still have money for me, master?" his strength obviously returning, as he boldly asked.

"Here you go my boy..." I handed him the money he was too weak to accept before.

Just then, someone called my name and I stood up to see who it was... wait!

And just like that he was gone, in between the crowd, on a busy street, in the dead of winter, with my mobile phone firmly clasped in his tiny hands.

I only wished he lingered a bit longer so I could quench my guilt by parting with a little more than a mobile phone and some crumpled bits of paper in return for the gratitude his presence inspired and the humaneness that was awakened in me on that cold winter day.