A homeless man, a kitten, and a dumpster….

There is little that I can recall from the early years of my childhood. Most of what I do recollect feels like a distant dream that I can almost grasp before it quickly slips away, retreating once more to the confines of my mind. The memory, however, of the first time I bore witness to the life of another, other than that of my mother, remains vivid. Its impact on my life, inescapable. 

It was an early spring day in Oklahoma, the year was 1984. I was 4 years old. The early morning brought with it the start of a new beginning, a new day of possibilities. My mother, just as we always did, rushed out the front door, making our way to ‘Der Dutchman’, the local seafood restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The outside air was already thick with humidity, serving as a reminder that the summer heat would soon be arriving.  Inside our little yellow Subaru, that my mother lovingly called Betsy, the air was heavy and hot. So, we rolled down the windows, put Duran Duran in the tape deck, and headed towards our destination. 

We had not been on the road long, before my mother noticed that we needed gas. We pulled into the nearest gas station, stopping at the pump closest to the store. My mother rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and hurried into the gas station to pay. As I looked through the crowd of impatient people, waiting for their turn at the counter, I saw her smiling and waving at me, keeping a watchful eye, as she waited. I cracked my window a little, hoping to catch any cool remnants of the morning air that may have been still lingering. As I sat there in the quiet of the car, I watched the world around me go by. I scanned the parking lot that was full of people and cars, growing ever more envious of the children walking into the McDonald’s building that sat next door to the gas station. It was then that I saw a homeless man digging through the dumpster that sat against the side of the McDonald's building. 

His tattered clothes hung loosely on his thin delicate frame, concealing the emaciated body that lay hidden beneath them. I watched as he dug deeper into the dumpster. Each time pulling out small pieces of food. Some, he would smell, and others immediately returned. Then, he emerged with what appeared to be a burger that was almost fully intact, its wrapper draped loosely around it. A big, child-like smile drew across his weathered face as he held it in his hand. He reached into the inside pocket of his long trench-like coat and as he did, he gently pulled out a tiny kitten. 

He held the tiny kitten in his frail hands as though he were holding life itself. The look of love that befell his face was unmistakable. He brought the tiny bundle to his cheek, rubbing his face softly against that of the kitten’s, smiling sweetly at it, then began speaking words that I was too far away to understand. 

 Unwrapping the burger, he gently began pulling small pieces from it, feeding every bite to his tiny companion.  He was starving and he had nothing more than a plastic bag of clothes at his feet and an old burger he had found in a dumpster. Yet, what he did have he chose to freely give to another. A life worth saving.

Since I was that little girl, sitting in an old car in front of a McDonald's, my purpose has been to embody the goodness and selflessness that I witnessed in that incredible man. He set a precedent of human character that day, and I have yet to meet his match. 

Through emotional resonance, that little girl I once was, made a promise in that moment to always see the humanity that exists beyond circumstances and to never stop fighting to tell the stories of those who need their voices and experiences to be heard. 

 This is my work—This is my calling.