For A Blue Eyed Woman

My buddy Tim told me a story the other day and I felt it was an important one to share. First I should say that he attracts all sorts and manners of strangers, and often the people he chats up are the people most would cross the street to avoid. He told me about a homeless couple who had been slumming it all the way from Virginia to Des Moines. The fact that they were alcoholics was obvious, but they kept themselves clean and never asked him for money, though they did accept his offerings of food. The guy had only a 4th grade education--he was 50 and couldn't read. Can you imagine getting by all those years without reading, without an education? Tim only gathered bits and pieces of his story when he would run into them on the street, and he never learned much about the woman, but he did notice how beautiful her blue eyes were, how they were kind, how they didn't seem to be affected by her alcoholism, which was an uncommon thing. He saw the gentleman a few days ago and he was looking rough--unkempt, shaky, babbling. Tim asked about the girlfriend, who'd he'd seen 10 days prior, and the man said she had died. Cirrhosis of the liver. All Tim could think about were those clear blue eyes. For the first time the man asked for money, said he was in desperate need of a drink. Would you have given him the cash? Would you have cried for the woman? Would you have cared about the lot of these human beings who drank themselves to oblivion and lived on the streets? Yes, they had clearly made poor decisions, but who knows what kind of environment they were born into, what kind of life they eventually fled, what kind of life they dreamed of. I think about that woman now. I picture her blue eyes filled with love for her companion. To me it doesn't matter that she was an alcoholic and a bum, I choose to honor this woman by writing about her now, and I vow to not be the person who crosses the street to avoid the homeless, but to offer the dignity of noticing every life.