Man on the Porch

                                              

There’s a man who sits on his porch.

Every morning. Every night. Like clockwork.

I pass him on my walks. He’s always there—slouched in a chair, cigarette in hand, smoke curling around him like a sad little crown. His porch is cluttered: cars in various states of disassembly, old religious statues standing guard, and a confusing number of trash cans. Empty trash cans. Dozens of them. I don’t understand. It’s as if he’s collecting the idea of trash.

And he never smiles. Not once. He looks heavy in the heart. Weighted down. Especially in the mornings, when the world is fresh and forgiving, when the air is clean and the birds are rehearsing their songs. That’s when he looks the saddest.

Beside him sits a big black dog. No leash. Just there, guarding him. The dog doesn’t wag. Doesn’t chase squirrels. He just sits- like a mirror. The man looks unhappy. The dog looks unhappy. It’s hard to say which one looks more resigned to their fate- the man with the cigarette, or the dog with the man.

I’ve been walking past this man for two years. Two years. Every single day. And I have never said hello.

Instead, I prepare for him. I literally psych myself up to not look at him. My brain goes into battle mode: Okay, eyes forward, don’t make contact, pretend you’re busy counting cracks in the sidewalk. It’s ridiculous because you’d have to be legally blind to miss him. He is right there.

Why don’t I say hello? Maybe because he looks my age. Maybe because his sadness scares me. Maybe because a small, cowardly part of me thinks: What if that’s me someday? Sitting outside, smoking, staring into the void?

Then one morning, for no reason at all, I said it.
“Hello.”

He didn’t respond. Not even a grunt.
I burned with embarrassment and kept walking.

But the next day- everything changed.

I approached the porch, expecting the usual silent standoff, but this time he stood up. He actually got out of the chair. My body froze. My brain panicked. Oh God, what now? Is this where I get murdered by a porch guy and his sad twin dog?

But he walked toward me and said:
“Good morning. My name is Mark. Thank you for saying hello yesterday. Nobody has done that in years. I didn’t know how to respond.”

And then Mark talked. For over thirty minutes. About life, work, loneliness, the dog. I don’t remember much of what he said, but I remember how it felt: like a wall crumbling. Like air rushing into a sealed room.

I see him differently now. The man on the porch is not scary or sad or other. He is me. He is you.

This past year I’ve learned:
We all walk past porch people. People hiding in plain sight. People we don’t look at because their pain scares us, or annoys us, or reminds us of our own.

But every human being wants the same thing: to be seen. Not fixed. Not judged. Just seen.

So say hello. Say it even if they don’t answer. Say it even if it takes years for them to wave back. Because sometimes a hello is not just a hello. Sometimes it’s the first crack of light in a very long night.

That light doesn’t just change them…it changes you too.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

       -Matthew 25:40