the mean streets of Las Vegas

  The man on the sidewalk is almost completely covered by a threadbare quilt wrapped around his body. Underneath is a piece of cardboard, his mattress. It is Las Vegas, the city of dreams and this man's current address is a cement strip outside a hotel. One can't tell his age but can see his matted dark hair and his battered shoes. How did he get here and who really cares? 

A handsome,  happy couple are walking away from the place where they just lost a bit of cash at Blackjack. That's what one does in Vegas. The tall man wisely hung onto a bit and he fingers a twenty in his pocket as they stroll together laughing and enjoying time away. What possessed the man then, upon seeing our sidewalk dweller,  to go to him, tap his shoulder and give him the twenty? And then say these words: "You matter. " The bleary eyed man looked up and with knitted brow says this: " I matter?" "Me,?. "He grasps the tall man's hand and holds it tightly as eternity passes between them. 

As I pondered this story, my mind drifts back to a moment in our back yard when we were watching our sweet red headed grandson.. He was sitting on a log and opening his snack of Teddy Grahams. As soon as he had the bag opened, he handed his Grandpa two and me two and then ate his treat. John said: " I think I'll like being a Grandpa." And then I think of going with him to a thrift store when he was 12 or so. His siblings couldn't go because they had homework. As we drifted around he declared that we had to buy his sister and brother something. His sister, who at the time wanted to be a mermaid, got a necklace with a shark's tooth.

His was the arm I hung onto when my husband's ashes were being lowered into the Georgia soil, He, in his Navy uniform holding Grandma up.

I wonder  if our homeless street sleeper started to repeat that message in his mind. "You matter, By God, son, you matter." Could that mantra not change a life if believed and lived? God spoke in Vegas that night and he used the father of the sailor to deliver the message for Him and to all of us. We matter. Oh yes, we matter.