The Other Side of the Bridge
Cold and alone, John Denbroe shuffled his way along the New York City street with just the clothes on his back and a bag filled with any trinket he could find on his daily saunter. It’s been too long since his last home meal and for that matter any well balanced meal. This evening was particularly cold and while John wanted to find slumber in one of the few available shelters, he retained the feeling that those beds were not for him, those crowds were not his people, this life was not his own.
It was years before that John served as CFO for a major brokerage house, dabbling in the unsuccessful market that his underlings had created for other unsuspecting victims. While successful in his endeavors, his personal assets never really amount to the life style he opted to provide to himself and to his family. His wife, after marrying him just out of college, provided him with three sons, all of which proved to have his acumen but his wife’s loving nature.
She was all he needed, he thought at the roughest times in his life. He actually hoped and prayed that to be true until the bottom fell out and he soon learned that she was in it for the lifestyle, the glitz and glamour. She left him the moment their funds left him. The boys, he knows he cannot even get temporary time with now that he’s on the street. So he walks, looking, hoping and even waiting for that one moment he feels will pull everything back together.
John, after all, still had faith in the unknown. He put his trust in the nature of people and the potential for them and their goodness. To john, he was a part of a bigger picture, that was yet to be completely painted, but yet would one day.
Finding a quiet spot under the 59th Street Bridge, with a canned fire not too far away, John set ground and placed his head upon his bag for the very last time. His eyes closed, thinking yet about the sun filled days still to be seen and the family for which he still held hope. He never thought that fires would eventually burn out and that the cold and dark that exists in the world would surround him like a blanket, suffocating the man that was and is John.
The toe tag said John D as the lifeless body was wheeled from location to location within the city morgue until finally taking temporary residence within one of the many walled chambers. It could have just stated John Doe, for as much as anyone cared. He had frozen to death. Being undernourished and not taking precautions to stay out of the cold, John Denbroe never had a chance. To the newspapers, he was just another 3 line Obit that stated, “Man found dead under the 59th Street Bridge”.
At 3:30 pm on Tuesday, within the shadow of the overhead autopsy light, a young man entered the room and asked to see the cadaver of the man from under the bridge. After authentication and identification, John Denbroe Jr was able to identify his father. The 3rd of the three boys allowed one tear and the words, “I will help to walk you on to where you are going, Dad. Sorry for leaving you alone for so long.”
John Denbroe, not being able to look up and see his son, was looking down and at that moment was aloft, carried along a bridge of love and happiness, knowing that the riches were never nor could never be lost. For they existed within the beings of those we leave behind. It is through them, we prosper and as well with them, we remain.
His new bridge led to that which John Denbroe sought his whole life, not a place of sadness, but the place of light, where hope is but part of the past and that which was hoped for is the reality of the present. Heaven never looked so beautiful. As John looked down one last time to see his son making arrangements for a proper burial, he smiled in knowing that one tear, one action will always be one more than none, thereby filling treasure chests of hope with truth and love. His life was worth it and through his death, he can see that his son gets it and will prosper in life for it.
