I Saw a Man Hug a Boy in the City

I saw a man hug a boy yesterday. I was driving south through the city, home from church, my mind all warp-speed and bothered and hung up on how the world is failing everyone. Though I lived in the city for seven years, I still feel skittish driving those streets, like a dog in a thin-walled house on the 4th of July. I’m nervous someone will change lanes or open their door into traffic or pull out of a blind alley or some kid will dart across the street. I’m on the lookout for potholes and stray dogs.

But as I drove south, towards the bridge that almost single-handedly cuts off the concrete and spreads out the trees and the sky, just before I got there, I saw a man hug a boy. The man was broad-shouldered and dark-skinned with short hair and a thick beard that glistened black. He had a handsome, young face.

I saw them just at the moment the spindly-armed kid took two quick steps and ducked into the man’s embrace. The man closed his eyes then, and that’s when I realized that the best hugs always cause someone to close their eyes. I have never thought about this before. It’s like we want nothing else but that moment, that touch, that feeling.

And I knew—I knew!—in that moment that the boy was the man’s son. Biological or not, that man loved that boy with the heart of a father—he wrapped him with those bulging arms and closed his eyes I could tell by the way the boy melted into that man that they loved each other.

This is what I saw, just yesterday. A miracle really. Love of the highest order, standing there, hugging, on a cracked sidewalk on the south side of a small city. And then I was gone. And I will probably never see those two people again in my life, but that hug has stayed with me.

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I started writing a serial novel a few weeks ago, and two chapters are up now. I put a new one up each Thursday morning, nice and early.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• If I care at all about the numbers of readers, or the numbers of likes, or anything besides how much fun I’m having with the story, I will never finish this thing.

• That’s it. That’s all I’ve learned so far. Pretty good lesson though, right?

You can find the first chapter HERE.