The Single

If you know what it feels like to be strapped for cash, if you’ve ever had your phone or your power shut off, or tried to pay for something at the grocery store with your kids in tow and your bank card gets declined — if you know that feeling, if that’s been a part of your life, I see you.

We were stopped at a red light on our way home one evening. It was dreary, damp and cold and everyone in their cars just trying to get home to start making dinner and get cozy for the night.

That’s where we were headed and I was going to be okay with waiting it out at the red light — no eye contact with the guy with sign at the intersection asking for money.

My daughter was in the passenger seat and I could feel her eyes on me, “What’s up?”

“Mom, give him some money.”

I was taken aback for a couple reasons. She was pretty little at the time, maybe eight or nine and it was unusual for her to be so assertive but I was proud because she was right!

I also surprised myself and honestly, this is hard to admit but I’d lost sight of something and it took my kid to point it out. That surprised me. I’m supposed to be the mom, the teacher but half the time or more I don’t have anything figured out.

I reached in my bag and searched around for a single. I found one, uncreased it the way people do with money before they pass it on. I pulled out the bill and my daughter looked at me horrified and she was like, “Mom, don’t you have anything more than that?!”

All I had was the single and a twenty. I’ve already talked about that feeling, the chronic stress of always being strapped for cash and when you’re in that situation, twenty dollars can be a lifeline. So even though we weren’t presently in that situation, that twenty dollars that my girl was now challenging me to surrender, wasn’t just any ordinary twenty, it was potentially the lifeline that we might unexpectedly need around the next corner.

I wish I could tell you I gave that guy the twenty dollars. I wish I could tell you that I even remember what he looked like, or what his sign said, or what he was wearing, or what his facial hair looked like, or maybe he didn’t have facial hair. I can’t tell you anything about what he looked like, not his age, race, height or weight. Nothing.

All I can tell you is that I lied. I pretended I only had the single and I rolled down my window and gave it to him.

Now I know what you’re thinking because there was a time I thought it too: maybe I did the right thing holding back the twenty or maybe he doesn’t even deserve a dollar of my hard earned money.

He should get a job.

Life is hard, it’s hard for everyone.

No excuse to give up.

He’s just going to use it for drugs or alcohol.

I get it. For a long time I was caught up in my own struggle — feeling bewildered and so often actually victimized by the system. It seemed like everybody else had it all figured out. I became so alienated and stressed out, so caught up in my own suffering that I’d become blind to the suffering around me. I’d hardened my heart to it. Taught myself to not see and walk past it on the street and drive by it in my car.

Other times when I was actually feeling on top of the world because I finally got my shit together about something, it was like all of a sudden, I’m above it all and I don’t want to have anything to do with that suffering. I don’t even want to think about it like it’s contagious.

It’s a shame thing. You don’t want to admit it when you’re in it and you don’t want to be near it when you’re not.

At that dreary intersection with my daughter that day, if I knew then what I know now, I would have given that guy the single and the twenty.

A lot of shit has gone down but I’m okay and we’re okay. We’re better than okay. We have a great place to stay right now with my parents. My mom and dad are good people and they look out for us. Through it all I’ve always had them looking out for me so I could never slip away. Even if I didn’t always have twenty dollars, I always had them in my back pocket.

I’ve talked about a lot of different stuff but I guess what I want to say is this, I don’t care if that guy used my dollar to buy drugs or if he used it as toilet paper and I wish I’d given him more. My daughter was right. Whatever he did with that money is not my business and not my problem. Money, if it’s a dollar, a twenty or a hundred, it’s nothing. Not even a lifeline. I didn’t know that then but I’m starting to get it now. It’s not the money, it’s the person. It’s the connection. It’s me in my car at the intersection not not seeing the person there with the sign. Maybe that’s just it. It starts with just seeing. from there, if you can give a dollar, that’s something but if you can give more, even more than you’re comfortable with, do it. I don’t know, it’s like you’re saying to that person and yourself and the whole world that nothing is more important and that’s a lifeline.