Some Perspective…

Sometimes Life Just Tosses You Perspective…

Tonight, while I sat in my Cadillac, waiting for Kris, I glanced over and there was a tiny kitten on the top of a wall right near the street. Then a person moved who had been sitting beside the wall, and I realized it was a homeless person with a sign.

Now, we were way out north and west of town, in suburban and strip malls, where the homeless seldom went, but there was a restaurant Kris loved and I didn’t much care for.

I had a basic McDonalds’ hamburger in a bag I wasn’t going to eat and some fries, so I took it over to him.

Young kid, clean, with a six or seven week old kitten on a leash. He was very happy to get the burger and fries, so I talked with him a minute. He had come out from Chicago on his father’s wishes, but then when he found the kitten, almost dead, beside a road, and nursed it back to life, his step mother tossed him out.

He had no way to get back to Chicago and was stuck in Vegas homeless with a small kitten.

He was clean, no sign of drugs, and way, way out of his element being out on the street, alone with his kitten.

I went and found Kris and got $20 cash from her and took it back to the kid. He also had a really nice back-pack cat carrier for the kitten. The guy looked maybe twenty, about my height, but very skinny like I was at twenty.

And he loved that kitten. As I watched and we talked, he got the kitten in the carrier and then got his big bottle of water and his backpack and thanked me for about the 10th time and said he was going to go get something more to eat. I asked and he had good kitten food and more than enough water.

So as he went to get something to eat in McDonalds, I went back to my Cadillac and sat and thought.

And remembered.

53 years before when I was his age, I had been homeless in Las Vegas. I had a car, but no money. He has no car, but a kitten he clearly loves. My step-mother had been the cause of my homelessness as well.

I felt lost and very much alone when I was homeless in Las Vegas, I remember that clearly, and for me it was August and the heat of the summer. Thankfully, it is October for him.  He wore a regliqious cross around his neck, so I hope someone in his faith will help him get going.

53 years later, I ended up living here, in a beautiful penthouse condo, after 50 plus years of doing what I loved with writing and publishing.

It felt weird to be sitting in my Cadillac watching a mirror image of myself from 53 years earlier excited about going to get some food.

I was homeless for just over three months before my best friend helped me get on the right track. I hope this kid has some of the luck I did.