Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I didn't even know his name

A couple of Tuesdays ago, I went out to the parking area because I knew there was a bunch of garbage out there. I live in an apartment complex where we all dump our garbage in these huge cans. Somebody came and overflowed our cans one night with their contraband garbage and left a mess. I planned on going out to clean it up after the city garbage trucks came on their scheduled day.

My neighbor beat me to it. When I got out there, he had most of it picked up.

We've bumped into each other only a couple of times since we moved in here in August. He told me his name but I forgot it about ten seconds after he told me. I tried to strike up a conversation with him, but we never seemed to make a conversational connection. I don't know if it was me or if it was him, but we never got beyond a cordial "hello".

Today when Allie and I came back from th park, there were two cop cars on the street by our apartments and cops in the driveway down in front of my garage. It was a little unsettling and I asked if everything was okay.

And then I noticed the smell.

The girl in apartment two though a rat had died in the attic. But when our maintenance guy shimmied up into the crawl space, the odor was too much for a rat. It was the guy in apartment three.

I'm in apartment four. I'm so sad that I didn't know the guy that shared a common wall with me. He drank himself to death is what the cops said. This man needed the gospel I've been entrusted with, but I couldn't even remember his name.

4 comments:

Chris Goeppner said...

gulp

Kat said...

sad....praying that this man met Jesus. God has His ways.

Anonymous said...

I second what Kat said.

Beyond that...you tried to connect, Bryon, and he wasn't responsive. It's sad, though.

Anonymous said...

A great reminder... Thank you for sharing.