The homeless man on the subway platform looked like all the others – until I saw the distinctive scar across his left eyebrow. My breath caught. “Thomas?” I whispered.
Thirty years earlier, that scar had been my beacon in a blinding snowstorm when I was a lost foster child. Thomas had carried me to safety, then vanished. Now here he was – frail, sick, and living underground.
I learned his heart was failing during our emotional reunion over burgers. “Just want to see the Pacific once before I go,” he confessed. I booked us tickets immediately, but a car accident victim needed emergency surgery. When I returned to Thomas’ motel room, his belongings were neatly packed, his body still.
At his funeral by the sea, I realized Thomas had saved me twice – first from the storm, then from forgetting how fragile life is. Now I volunteer at homeless shelters, looking for other heroes in ragged clothes who might need saving too.
