This Week God Brought Us... "Mel"

This week God brought us…”Mel”, a small man with a stoop, holding a walking stick, in his early 80s, sporting an extravagant mustache. We had never seen Mel before, but he came in today asking for help paying for his post office box rental. Mel narrated a life that began with domestic abuse from his father as a toddler, then a stepfather who spent decades in a psychiatric hospital. Mel never married or had a family of his own and has lived in the dilapidated house he inherited from his mother for more than half a century. He stated that he spent a few years in the military, but does not receive a VA pension. He also had a reason for why he was not receiving social security, but I couldn’t follow the logic. He described his only income as coming from small investments, which he said weren’t doing well at the moment, such that he had no income whatsoever. His only concern that day was making sure he could still access his mail at the post office. When I assured him that I could cover this cost for him, his attention shifted to catching the next available bus. He had described challenges with getting enough to eat, but when I invited him to help himself from the items we had on hand, he politely declined. Then he was on his way. 

Our country is full of people just like Mel, men and women who barely register as they go about their small lives. Mel is a son, a neighbor, a brother to us all.