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i sat in mexico today and watched this man limp slowly out of a building. i stared at him as he walked and i wondered what his story was; what had happened in his life. then he started coming towards my car and i prayed that he wasn't coming to talk to me, or beg for things, because i didn't have anything to offer him. as he walked up and stood next to my window i realized that i wasn't going to get by with just sitting back and watching this man pass by; rather our lives were about to collide. i rolled down my window and told him i had nothing to give. then as i looked around the car i found a half eaten bag of chips and then a half empty Gatorade. he took them, thanked me, and limped away. i've never seen anyone walk so slow and barely able to move. i spent the next 5 minutes watching him trying to walk, stopping to drink the Gatorade, then eating the bag of chips. i had been visiting families all day in Juarez. the car had been full of people but in this moment everyone was gone and it was just me. all i could think about was how this city is so broken, it is hurting so badly, there is so much need. i think what i saw in him when everything was silent was his own humanity and mine. it was just a half eaten bag of chips and half of a drink, but we are both just human, and hungry, and tired and hurting. and as i watched my reflection in the window shadowed by his frame, i realized that as different as our lives are, they are exactly the same.
i sat in mexico today and watched this man limp slowly out of a building. i stared at him as he walked and i wondered what his story was; what had happened in his life. then he started coming towards my car and i prayed that he wasn't coming to talk to me, or beg for things, because i didn't have anything to offer him. as he walked up and stood next to my window i realized that i wasn't going to get by with just sitting back and watching this man pass by; rather our lives were about to collide. i rolled down my window and told him i had nothing to give. then as i looked around the car i found a half eaten bag of chips and then a half empty Gatorade. he took them, thanked me, and limped away. i've never seen anyone walk so slow and barely able to move. i spent the next 5 minutes watching him trying to walk, stopping to drink the Gatorade, then eating the bag of chips. i had been visiting families all day in Juarez. the car had been full of people but in this moment everyone was gone and it was just me. all i could think about was how this city is so broken, it is hurting so badly, there is so much need. i think what i saw in him when everything was silent was his own humanity and mine. it was just a half eaten bag of chips and half of a drink, but we are both just human, and hungry, and tired and hurting. and as i watched my reflection in the window shadowed by his frame, i realized that as different as our lives are, they are exactly the same.
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