Lost

The continuing story of The Homeless Man...

Gone - Disappeared - Forever?

Searching - Seeking - Looking - Longing

Finding nothing at this once serendipitous meeting spot. No familiar voice calls out my name any longer.

Only the live melodic strumming of a flamenco guitarist courtesy of the MTA pierces the enveloping midnight stillness of this cavernous place - Grand Central Station.

So where has the GRAND gone for these homeless folk that cross my path instead of you? Scattered like refuse in plain sight pretending to be invisible. Mock travelers with no destinations, sleeping upright at silent ticket booths or tucked in triangular crevices so no one will tell them to leave their temporary cocoon of despair.

This same charade unfolding every night before the new day dawns.

And where are you now my old friend? The Archangel of this Heroic Journey.

Gone missing. Vanished, just like you appeared in my life before 9/11. Book marked forever in my heart-replaced only by what is still yet to come.

Found

And then eight months later, out of the midnight mist you sit propped on an unfamiliar city street, waiting mysteriously for our paths to cross again.

Thirteen years later you have finally found a home on the fifth floor.

And we embark together again on this BENEW journey.

Homeless Man

This is not a wrapped up tale, LIFE never is.

HOLLYWOOD, OPRAH AND TED will need to wait. There is no finite ending here, just a work in progress.

This is about seeing something troublesome out of the corner of my eye and not letting go for thirteen years, and still not letting go.

It is about many tiny baby steps and moments of bravery & courage for all those involved. It is about trying to save another while mysteriously saving myself too.

It is about magical bread crumbs scattered by an unknown force and how a ripple could become a WAVE.

It is how a Homeless Man and I accidentally crossed paths on a late summer day on a midtown Manhattan street right before 9/11 and how this chance encounter blossomed into a friendship that has intertwined many lives. Unfolding like a tapestry of endless possibilities and opportunities for all mankind.