Tuesday, while driving around showing houses to a couple of different clients, I saw something (or someone rather) that I have not noticed before around my little town of McDonough, GA. It was a lady wearing a red shirt, pushing a red shopping cart, walking down the side of a rather busy road. Odd. I mean the closest store that would have shopping carts was at least 5 miles from that point...and the road had no sidewalks or anything that separated her from the road.
Of course, I was in a hurry as usual so I just brushed it off and kept driving. Well, later that day, I went out with my family to run some errands. I saw the same lady, wearing the same red shirt, pushing the same red shopping cart. Except this time, she was quite far from the place I had seen her earlier that day. I told my husband "Hey, I saw her earlier today on Highway 42". "Wow", he says, "that's a long way from here." We had two of our 4 children with us, so of course we couldn't stop...
The next morning, I was on my way to drop off one of the kids at school, and who do you think I saw? Yep....red shirt, red shopping cart, walking. She had a little bit of a smile on her face too, I think. And this time she was in a completely different part of town...had she been walking all night? Well this time, I still had one child (a 10 month old baby) in the car, was alone (no husband to help) and had a killer schedule to manage that day (hurry, hurry). For the third time in less than 24 hours, I did not stop.
I guess I am only writing this to express my concern for this lady (whom I have not seen again since Wednesday morning) and my disappointment in myself for not DOINGsomething...what I don't know. It is so strange for us in McDonough to see this type of thing, I mean we are about 30 miles south of Atlanta and we have no public transportation here...so how did she get here? Where was she going? Does she have a family or someone she can go to for help? I suppose I may never know.
In an industry where day in and day out we help the more fortunate among us find everything from a dream home, to investment properties, to just plain old shelter (not fancy, but it does the trick), it is especially painful for me to see someone without the very thing so many of us (myself included) take for granted.
I hope she finds her way home.
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