Inspiration Road

Inspiration Road. I don't know why it's called that. It cuts under the expressway in Mission, Texas and leads north through Mission or south towards Mexico. There isn't anything really inspiring about it as far as I can tell. I never really travel the road either. But recently the expressway through Mission had been undergoing some expansion and some of the expressway on ramps and exits have been shut down. In my case the nearest on-ramp to the expressway takes me and a thousand others through the frontage road and through the Inspiration Road intersection. This means we are all at the mercy of the red light there that seems intent on breaking all world records for red lights. 

This day I sat behind 20 other cars waiting for the light and I saw a man in a wheelchair asking for money. It was way too hot to be outside was my first thought. My second was how did he know this intersection was now a good place to do this? Yeah, I'm a little cynical sometimes. I have never seen a lot of people here in the a valley asking for money but there are a few here and there. And they seem to have some kind of network because the moment an intersection gets clogged down with traffic because of repairs they all appear. My third and fourth question were how did he get here and who dropped him off? I also wondered if he did this all day here or does he go to different places every day? 

I edged forward in line and watched him. I had a twenty, a five ,and a one dollar bill with me and I was not in the mood to let go of any of it. I knew the longer this line took the better the chances of me parting with my money. He knew that too or he wouldn't have chosen this spot. I'm gonna win this one. As he sits there I seem reach into his large plastic container he is using. I seem him take 2 bills out and fold them neatly into the small triangles and drop them back in his container. I couldn't tell what kind of bills they were. I figure he does that so they won't fly out because the wind picked up a bit. Or maybe he does it so you won't see all the money he's collected. Who's going to give money to a man with a container overflowing with cash?

I thought about things while I waited in line. I remembered a time many years ago when my wife lost her job. We lost our brand new house and one of our vehicles right after that. It was a rough time. There was this one night when Lauren spent the night at a friends house and we were so relieved because we didn't have any food in the house. We had no cash and not a penny in the bank. We found an old frozen bag of french fries in the freezer and a can of chili in the cupboard. We found 2 slices of cheese in the fridge. That was literally the only thing we had in the house. We dined that night on the best chili cheese fries we ever had. Things got better eventually. Every once in a while when we went out to eat somewhere we would order chili cheese fries, but they never quite tasted as good as that night. They probably never will. 

The line moved along and as I got closer to the man I saw he was probably about 50 or so but looked much older. Through his pants I could see his legs were thin as sticks though the rest of his body wasn't. He looked like a man that used to work hard for a living. I could see the sweat bother his eyes. There was no sidewalk where he was so he had to push through dirt and rocks to move along. I looked at my temperature gauge in my car and it read 102. I edged up next to the man and he did not even look at me. Traffic moved on and I passed him by one car length. 

I felt bad passing him by and I am ashamed to tell you right now that I did pass him while holding on tight to my wallet. I thought to myself the guy probably has more money in that little bucket of his than I do. Probably makes a good living at this. Then I looked in the side mirror and about 2 car lengths behind me I saw someone throw out a rolled up dollar bill at him and it missed him completely and landed in the street in front of him. There was no way he could get to it and no one got out of their car to get it. I looked in the side mirror as he sat there and stared at the crumpled up bill on the street. The cars behind me started honking for me to move forward. I was about to when I saw those little words on the bottom edge of the mirror. His wheelchair seemed to be sitting right on them...OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. Dammit. I got out of my car and opened up the hatch and took a freezing cold water bottle out of my cooler. I also grabbed a brand new cap I had back there. I went over to the man and gave him the water and cap. I also took out the 20 and the 5 out of my wallet and gave that to him. I saw that those 2 one dollar bills that he had folded into a triangles were the only things in his container. I looked around for the bill that was thrown but couldn't find it anymore. By then everyone was honking for me to move. I started walking back to my car when I noticed one truck was honking away trying to get my attention more than the others. I walked over to it thinking I better find a mother in labor or someone with a completely severed limb in the car with all that racket they were making. The guy in the truck rolled down his window and handed me a 20 dollar bill. I gave it to the old man and went on my way. 

You know it is true that we are all closer to each other than we appear. We are all just one step away from having things happen to us that we can't control. The only cure to the misery that comes with that is each other. If you see someone in need help them out. Not just because it could be you some day, but because it is the right thing to do. Don't just pass them by.

I crossed Inspiration Road with one dollar in my pocket and almost no gas in my car, and, perhaps, just a bit inspired.