Leftover Soup

Sitting down tonight around 7, we had our entire night planned out. We had had dinner with a friend, the Cubs were on TV, Amy had homework, and we were planning on a long night of doing absolutely nothing.

God had slightly different plans for us. Did he ever.

Around 715, there was a soft knock on the door. We looked out to see Richard, aka Goofy, our homeless friend we had taken to lunch on Saturday. He had brought with him Richard C, who we knew from our first outreach. Goofy said they were very sorry, but they hadn't eaten today, and they wondered if we had any cans of soup or anything.

Our hearts sank a bit. First of all, it was 715 in the evening, and these guys hadn't eaten today. At all. That's just wrong. Second, we had just had dinner and weren't planning on being home this week, so the cupboards were pretty bare. We had made vegetable soup out of leftovers a few nights ago because we didn't feel much like cooking, but that was - hey, wait a minute. We had homemade vegetable soup.

To most people, vegetable soup is on the same level as oatmeal. (I have never once, in my entire life, heard anyone exclaim, "Yay!! Oatmeal!!" Most people, when presented with a bowl of oatmeal, will make a groaning noise and say, "Oh. Yay. Oatmeal.") You'll eat it when it's there - but chances are, you'd much rather have something else. But when we mentioned homemade vegetable soup to these guys, their eyes lit up.

So, we had a picnic. We reheated the soup, made them a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, and sat outside with them while they ate. (As an aside, my wife has burned every grilled cheese she has ever made in her life - except these two. They were picture-quality sandwiches.) Richard C has a broken neck from a nasty fall he took a while back. Goofy has esophageal cancer. Both of them own little more than the backpacks them had with them. But, for a few minutes tonight, none of that mattered.

We were four people, sharing a meal, laughing, and talking. At one point, Amy was cleaning a wound on Richard C's head with tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is pretty pungent, and she said, "Now, this stuff doesn't smell the best." Goofy grinned and said, "When you live by a creekbed, you learn to ignore smells. That stuff is nothing."

We've never reached down to them - we've reached out to them. Richard C told me he could probably get on disability - but that he'd much rather work. He's looking forward to getting back to work as soon as his neck heals. They have been in some bad situations in their lives. So have I. We've never once pitied them. They don't want people to feel sorry for them. They just want people to treat them the way they were treated tonight. Like they matter. Like somebody cares.

Like they're human.

Sometimes, all it takes is a bowl of leftover soup.