David McElroy

I was watching a football game when Phillip came into a restaurant near my house Saturday night. He spoke to me as he came in, but I was too absorbed in the game to pay much attention. But as this homeless man took a seat at the table next to me — as he typically does — I was struck even more than usual by the contrasts between us.

I just bought a new car Friday and I’m very happy with it. It’s not really a new car. It’s not some luxury model. It’s a Toyota Camry and it’s a couple of years old. But it’s much nicer than the 14-year-old Corolla I’ve been driving for the last six years or so. By comparison, it feels like luxury.

Suddenly, the new car made me painfully conscious of the differences between Phillip and me. It wasn’t that I regretted what I had. I didn’t feel guilty for having nice things. But I was suddenly grateful for the things I had.

I noticed the shoes that Phillip was wearing tonight. They were a pair that he had proudly shown me about six weeks ago. He had gone to visit a church where he sometimes gets help and the preacher had surprised him that day with these shoes.

I had arrived at the restaurant tonight in a nice new car. He had arrived in donated shoes.

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The woman was tall and strikingly beautiful. There was something about her that made her stand out in a loud restaurant that was packed almost shoulder to shoulder late Friday night. Then she turned her face toward me.

I gasped, at least inwardly. Was that her? It was her, but it couldn’t be. The restaurant was so loud and packed that nobody could have heard me, but I felt my lips move involuntarily.

“Are you proud of me?” I whispered.

For a brief moment, our eyes met. She was beautiful. She had a powerful presence. But it wasn’t her.

She was leaving through one door and I was heading out the door on the other side of the place. Then she was gone and I was in my car. I put the key into the ignition, but I didn’t start the car. I just sat there thinking about what had just happened.

I had thought for a moment that she was someone who I once loved. I was mistaken, but just thinking it was her made me realize — because of the question I blurted out — that I still want her to be proud of me. Even after all these years.

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The advice is almost always well-meaning, but it’s completely clueless.

“Come on,” the advice goes. “That happened a long time ago. He didn’t really mean to hurt you. They did the best they could. You just need to let it go. It’s time to get over it.”

I know what it feels like to think this about someone, because I’ve done it, too. I remember a conversation I had years ago in which a friend and I mocked someone who couldn’t “get over it” and move on after childhood abuse. That was before I understood my own childhood trauma, so I eventually felt guilty about having said such things about someone else.

But I get it. When you watch someone else go through the agony of long-term pain and anger from emotional abuse, it’s baffling if you don’t have a frame of reference. The person who’s suffered abuse can come across as crazy — at least it can look that way to someone who’s not hurting.

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