Lost Dollar

Image credit: Painting by Lynda Abromeit With a special thanks to The Junky's Wife for using her goddess-like image search skills to find it.

Yesterday, my daughter found a dollar on the sidewalk near our house while she was out walking with my husband. She came bounding up to me and said, "Look, Daddy and I found a dollar somebody lost!"

"Wow, I wonder who lost it," I said.

"I don't know," she said.

"Mama will hold onto it," said my husband as my daughter ran off to play some more. I put the dollar in my purse and said jokingly, "Sure, and if anyone comes around asking for their dollar, I'll give it to them."

I was out shopping tonight when I noticed a man sitting on a bench up ahead of me as I walked down the sidewalk. He was looking away from me, but I thought he must be handsome; there was something about his hair and the way he held his body. I passed him and he said, "Excuse me, miss." He said it as if he really had a question he wanted to ask me, some piece of information he needed that I might have. So I stopped and turned to face him. He had large, soft, brown eyes that looked kind and anxious. He was a little disheveled, but only a little, as if he were trying not to be, but his hair and clothes had gotten away on their own and messed themselves up somewhere without him. His leg was twitching, jumping up and down. He had one hand resting on it, as if he were trying to soothe it still.

"Do you have a dollar I could have for the bus, please?"

I did have a dollar, stuck there in my purse, not even in my wallet. I fished it out and handed it to him. "Thank you so much," he smiled with a warm sadness, "Have a nice evening, miss."

"You too," I said, as I walked away.

But that wasn't what I wanted to say to him. I wanted to tell him that I knew the dollar wasn't for the bus. It was for his dealer. I knew by the way his leg was twitching and by the way he kept sitting on that bench, nowhere near a bus stop, as I walked away. I knew by the way his easy warmth and politeness rolled over his anxiety and pain. I knew by the way I liked the back of his head, before I even saw him.

I wanted to tell him that even though we have had very different lives, even though I've never been where he's been, even so, I've been in dark places of my own and I know the darkness that he's breathing now. I wanted to tell him that I knew what he was going to do with that lost dollar, but I gave it to him anyway, and I'm not sure why, other than that it seemed to be his dollar. I wanted to tell him there's another way.

But I couldn't say it, and he couldn't hear it. Instead I went back to my car and cried. And I said a prayer, if you could call it that: I sent out a cry, a hope to the universe. I hoped that I did what I was supposed to do. I hoped that his bottom would come soon and that he'd live through it. I hoped that his next dollar would wind up in a basket at a meeting, and not in his dealer's hand. And I hoped that somehow that lost dollar would help him find his way home.