Meant to Hear

With the exception of someone explicitly asking or crying out for help, most of us do our best not to overhear conversations.  To not...eavesdrop.  However, after reading a bit about "awareness" and listening to messages around us, messages that are essentially meant for us, I left to take a walk and photograph some scenes at a local pier.  Not even "aware" that what I had read had left that much of an impression on me.

Minding my own business, or so I thought, I was standing and photographing a scene when I heard an unlikely group of friends approaching.  A well-dressed man and woman were casually walking toward me.  They appeared to live a comfortable life.  Well-kept clothing.  They carried the accessories of tourists traveling the coast.  Beside them, a bearded man, draped in a heavy, worn, over-sized coat.  His shoulders round and hunched under the weight of a tremendous knapsack.  Garbage bags filled the tilted, twisted bike basket on the front of his rickety, rusted, squeaking metal machine that had obviously seen better days.  He rolled his old mangled friend alongside his limping left leg with all the respect that a man of his means could give his true love and most-prized possession.

I didn't hear the majority of the discussion.  Thank goodness.  I always feel that I have more than enough of my own business to attend to without even thinking about hearing others' conversations.  But, I did hear one line.  One line rose above the sweet sound of the fog horn and shouts of fisherman advertising their catches.

The homeless stranger, who I now consider a sage, let out a prickly, gruff noise and out came a statement that said so much in so few words.

Out from behind his grizzly beard he snorted, "Why would I give an opinion about something I know nothing about"?

Wow.  The context was irrelevant.  The statement rang true.  A truth that stood alone.  A fact that simply existed.  Outside of space and time.  Untouched by the limits of any one conversation.

How many of us could learn so much from just that?  Just listening, learning, seeking, keeping the peace by not feeling that our opinions were necessary.  Just listening or saying the dreaded, "I don't know".  Not having all the answers for things which we just truly can't answer.  Allowing the words of those with greater personal experience just stand.  Uncontested.  Humbly admit we just know nothing...until we know something -- and being comfortable in acknowledging our uncertainty.

I don't know where you are, Sir.  I don't know if you still carry your cumbersome load and you continue to stroll your seasoned machine down the sidewalk or into the brush by the sea.  I do know that you changed my life, and I will never forget the mark you made on me personally.  The gift you gave to me.  A question that I will remember far longer than my "eavesdropping" reading.

What's strangely sad for me?  I will never be able to tell you, "Thank you".  But, Sir, thank you...wherever the road takes you...thank you.  From me.  A sweet lesson I will never forget.  Words I was meant to hear.