Somebody's son

This morning I took a walk about seven blocks or so because I needed to go to the bank. It was early- about 7:45, and not much was happening on the streets of austin that early. It was about 40 degrees outside, which was brisk, but once I started walking it wasn't so bad.

There were only two things going on that early in downtown Austin. There were runners everywhere clad in underarmor and wool caps. Then there were the homeless guys either still curled up in a blanket in a doorstep or walking around. I watched a couple of scraggly, bearded guys shuffle down the sidewalk - one with his hands full of bags and the other carrying a hiking backpack. I guess because of my lonely state of mind and missing my family (see my previous post) I thought "wow. Those men used to be babies just like Noble. At some time they were somebody's son. ". I actually felt really sad when I looked at these guys through a father's eyes. It would kill me to think of my baby boy ending up like that.

But the more I thought about it as I walked, the more I thought about the parents of these homeless men. Did they even know that their sons are homeless? What kind of parents would leave their child in such a state? I made a lot if assumptions, and I know that every person has their own circumstances and history. I know that some of these men choose to live this way. I know that some men have fallen to this after losing everything. I know this. But I still can't help but think that if their parents had done a better job of providing for them, that many wouldn't be in the states they're in today. Notice I didn't say raising them. That's only half the job. My job as a parent is to make sure that my family will be okay if (God forbid) anything should happen to me. The parents of those men obviously didn't - or couldn't. No life insurance no college fund. No house. No security.

No judgement here- just an observation. And again, a generalization for the purpose of this thought stream...

But it just reinforced to me why it's so important to do the hard- and expensive things that we've been trying to do. It's important to me to know that when I'm gone that my kids will be left with something. And it will be equally as important that Kristi and I teach good stewardship of the money and things that we'll leave to our kids someday so that they don't just go blow it and be left shuffling through life carrying their bags around.

I think if parents did more of that, then there would be a lot fewer wayward former sons and daughters on the streets.