is a part of the human experience. Whatever cards in life you’ve been dealt with, whether born with a silver spoon, or poor, does not change the fact that sadness will be present in one’s lot in life. I have witnessed and experienced a lot of sadness myself, nevertheless, I do not say that mine would be the worse of it all, I thank the universe for this everyday.
Nonetheless, what I have in mind is not the saddest thing per se, plus, human memories are fickle and fragmented, so I will recount the most recent one’s I’ve seen that I remembered upon seeing this question.
I was on the way home when I saw a homeless man being berated in front of a take-out place that was in the midst of construction.
The homeless man had frazzled hair that reached down to his upper torso. It looked as if it had been years since he had washed his own hair. He only wore these ragged blue jeans that were full of holes and dirt, everywhere else he was naked, not even his feet had any pair of flip flops to wear. It seemed as if his feet were already used to walking the sun baked concrete of manila, impervious to tiny jagged rocks that might pierce his exposed feet, I only supposed that his feet turned callous in return
he way I saw the scene was that the homeless man tried picking up a plastic bottle. Take note that this was an empty plastic bottle, not the ones that you purchase in the store, but the ones that you can already consider as trash. A man, I’m assuming the owner, because of how he carried himself in relation to the other men, and well, his way of clothing as compared to the others who were obviously carpenters/workers, shouted at the homeless guy to leave the EMPTY water bottle alone. The owner even threatened the man pointing at him, if he didn’t put the water bottle down he would’ve hurt the guy. They even had a stare down and I could swear the owner was going to hurt the man.
This was were I saw it, he put the plastic bottle down, he looked up at the sky, and screamed something along the lines of “putangina banamang buhay to? pati nalang bote?”. Translated to English it’s: “fucking whore mother of a life, even just this bottle!? The way he said it and just how he looked at the sky, perhaps referring to God just really resonated with me. It sent shivers down my spine…He truly cursed at God and with his voice full of real misery and suffering just pierced my heart. I never forgot that day, and most especially that homeless man. Whenever I feel bad about my day, I thank the universe that I have a roof over my head, something warm to eat, and people that care for me and love me.