An Interview with a Beggar

Losing them wasn’t the worst thing that happened in my life. It`s when seeing them die but I was too incapable of preventing it to happen.

If you wonder why or how I nonetheless keep this life of mine; that makes two of us. I also do. One thing I know for sure, suicide is never the answer to end miserableness. When I was a child, my father told me that there`s one good guy up there who smiles just seeing me breathing. Maybe it`s enough reason for me to keep on doing it so.

Living in this kind of life, made me learn that there are indeed surprises in life. The most overwhelming experience I had in begging was when a stranger ,yet seems so familiar in some odd way, gave me one dollar bill–the biggest amount of money I got from begging. He said, “Pete, come to my party and join me in my rejoicing”. One dollar? Party? Rejoicing?…they weren’t too perplexing than him calling me by my name. HE knows me by my name. I would not dare ask how. Like a crippled man who has been sitting on the street for the rest of his life, I got up and followed him. I was wearing that time the most presentable thing I had, the unpaired slippers I found the other day. I had mixed emotions that very moment. I might have drowned by shame while approaching to his mansion, but, my heart was too warm throughout the time I was walking with this man. My heart was unexplainably burning with fire– I just felt grace melting my beggar being.

I met the other people who were invited as well…now, I could not notice anymore my `presentable slippers’. Most of them were robed charmingly. The affluent crowd was mixed with individuals with the same kind as mine. But, we were treated well. It was the first time I got to sit in front of the chair line. The only thing I can remember the mansion master had said was, ” Come to me and I`ll give you rest”. Honestly, I hadn`t got the whole point of it. I wasn`t tired….I was hungry. In one way or another, though I can`t totally grasp what I believe he uttered for a purpose, what I am holding right now with precious value is that, the man made me realized that I AM NOT WASTED IN ANY WAY.

If only each one of us knows how to share and give…there will be no beggars on the streets.  

I know that you know how it feels to be a beggar. We are all beggars …in some ways. Some beg for attention and appreciation, some beg for grace and mercy, others beg for forgiveness or acceptance, others beg for security or wellness, but most of us beg for affection and sympathy. 

Now, how does it feel to be denied of what you are begging for?…

I`ll leave it to you…but the next time you walk out of the cold alley and you happen to pass by someone like me…never put a penny on his can with treatment as though the penny is worth his life..”