January 1996
A Test Case
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My favorite beggar story belongs to my sister. It’s not an urban legend, though its sounds like one. In fact, this is the kind of story from which urban legends are made:
My sister knows a woman — personally — who once rescued a falling-down drunk man from Lincoln Avenue. She hoisted him onto her shoulder, and took him to his house, and cleaned him up and put him to bed. Then she dropped by the next day with food and clothes. He was a grateful old guy, and a nice man, too. So they struck up a kind of friendship, the two of them, and my sister’s friend made it her business to help him out.
After several months, the sweet old guy got sick; he ended up in Cook County Hospital, where my sister’s friend was his only — and frequent — visitor. She was the last one to speak with him before he died. And she was astounded when a lawyer called her home months later to tell her the old man had left her more than a million bucks.
You can turn this story over and over in your mind, again and again, like a pretty little rock — or a teaching story to ponder deeply. The woman was not extraordinary — except for this one random act. The man was not an exemplary homeless man. Her reward was a jackpot; for her it was sweetened by a sense that she’d done a right thing.
Do you like the way this story ends? What do you like? the pathos? The tragedy? the compassion? the surprise? Are you moved to help other homeless people now? And are you moved by the woman’s courage — or by the big cash reward? Turn the story over and over in your mind. And the next time someone asks for cash, think: who is this person in need?
— Sheri Reda
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