A mind can think of many things in just a few seconds.
At a red light, I listened to Jeremy Camp. He sang, "We are the light to reach this world." I was motivated.
I saw Jessie, an old friend of my mother’s, standing in front of a local pawn shop. Seeing him brought back many memories. As a little girl, I remembered looking into the glass counter that displayed the jewelry someone never returned to retrieve. My mother negotiated with the teller, "Can you give me fifty dollars for these earrings? They’re fourteen-carat gold," she said.
Jessie was the manager of a dance group I was in as a teenager. We were sure Jessie was going to help us make it. We believed he could do it. I smiled.
Until I asked myself, "What happened to Jessie?" Jessie is homeless; he eats breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner in the basement of a church. I thought, "Is there an invisible cage locking up people like Jessie? People like my mother? People like the boys?"
I wondered if Jessie was in the custody of this cage from which he can’t seem to escape.
Tags