I did not want to hear her response through a text as I shared my day only two hours in.

God appointment, she texted.

Okay. Oh, okay.

There was an empty wheelchair in my office parking lot this morning in the cold drizzling rain.

What in the world??? , I said.

I didn’t get out of my car right away, ready yourself, ready, be ready.

I saw him in the lobby.

A homeless man and without his bicycle and now with crutches and a hand me down wheelchair.

Okay, I told myself.

Hands and feet, hands and feet.

Breathe, see this as an opportunity.

When he said he’d not eaten since Sunday, we bought him two cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake.

He looked around my office, saw the photos of my children, chuckled over one of my husband and me, told me he looked like a “pretty cool dude” and then because we needed to do what the system said, I convinced him to go for a mental health assessment and I told him we haven’t done this before.

It may be the one thing that will turn the key.

He kept talking about hope. I told him to continue.

Hope.

Then I found out they wouldn’t, couldn’t help him and he still said thank you, Lisa as my eyes met his as they loaded his wheelchair I brought to the van in the rain.

And I do not understand.

I don’t think I understand systems that push people through only getting a glimpse of their stories, I’m not sure I understand our present humanity at all.

I’m very regretful over resenting that I gave this man the bulk of my day and how I kept saying to myself “hands and feet, hands and feet” yet, I got him no remedy, no relief.

Such is life when it hits you to commit to the last few words you said.

I will pray for you, I told him.

I will. I pray I remember.

Least I can do when my hands and feet, do little at all, seem to be for naught.

I can pray.

Least of the things I can do when my hands, my feet, my heart falls short of relief.

Hope and pray.

Continue and believe.