Homelessness is such a strange career.

Last night this homeless man in a wheelchair was hit by a car and killed crossing a major intersection right by the starbucks where I work. My best friend told me about it--she was sent home from work early because of it, the "disturbance" slowed down business.
A coworker had made a joke about it but someone just died, she said.
The world is so fucked up, he was just trying to live, but now he's gone and life goes on and nobody cares. I was listening to this mix you gave me and this really dark song with cello came on and I felt nauseous, she said.
I didn't remember then but tonight I realized I'd met him. Last week as I went to see a movie with a couple friends I gave him a few dollars. He asked me about my beetle, and he just wanted to talk. Tonight it hit me too. Hit me that he's just gone. She said once, "Homelessness is such a strange career. Depending on the compassion of other human beings to survive."
And here I sit in my house, typing about him on my laptop. I'm drinking some tea and I just took a shower. I'm not hungry. The heater is on to keep the cold at bay. I'm healthy, warm, full, I have a home, I'm listening to my favourite band, and relaxing after work. No one has taken away my dog because I can't afford the license to have him. No one is hauling me off in a cop car for standing in front of a store pleading of strangers to help me be able to eat. I sleep behind a closed door, and my clothes are clean and whole. I'm known by the government as a string of nine numbers, I'm known to my job as a string of seven, my existence is marked in digits if not by family and friends. I survive, working a part time job and seeking another, going to school, and functioning in society.
Anything I ever have to complain about having to endure seems so incredibly whiny, selfish, and completely unimportant. I know I will forget how I feel now and grumble about having to buy gas, pay rent, go to work, do homework, but I fucking have a car, a place to live, a job, and an education. There are a thousand tiny things I think about and complain about in a day and I pray to God I never forget or take advantage of what a privileged, spoiled brat I am. What lucky sons and daughters of hungry beasts we are when we're all going to be ghosts one day.