The Man in the Red Jacket

In early February, I was working an off-duty job when I noticed a family shopping. A couple was moving along slowly through the store. A conservative estimate of their ages was that they were in their mid-seventies, and they were not alone. A middle aged man was with them. I assumed he was their son. He man was patiently pushing a buggy and waiting on the couple. The woman was moving slowly with the aid of a cane, looking for just the right items. The younger man placed her choices in the buggy, quietly and patiently, following her at a pace that would make a tortoise look speedy.

The son was dressed a little differently than most men his age. He was wearing a ball cap with a tractor on the front of it, a red coaches jacket (the kind with a polyester shell and white cotton lining), and blue jeans. He wore the ball cap with the brim pulled down low on his forehead as if he needed it to shield his eyes from the sun, but he was inside and it was already dark outside. On the left side of his red jacket he wore a badge that read, “SHERIFF” across the middle of it. It was the kind of souvenir badge that you can get in Hot Springs or Smokey Mountain National Forest.

As a keen observer of human behavior and interaction, I recognized that the man was near my age, but he was somehow different. My friend with the “Sheriff” badge on his chest was a man on the outside, but a boy on the inside. Now I know that there is a handful of indiscreet readers who would claim that very description could apply to me, and I must admit they would be correct in many ways; however, I have been given the ability to live somewhat independently of my parents, and I have a family of my own. By all appearances the man in the red jacket had been near his parents since the day he was born.

I watched the family from a distance as they interacted while shopping. I was humbled and convicted as the man with the red jacket waited on his parents and served them as Mother Teresa served the needy in Calcutta. I thought of myself, always in a hurry, impatient, looking for short cuts and often flying through life like a jet doing a fly over at an air show. And patience? I had a little once, but I quickly tired of it. I am often most occupied with me, my problems, my concerns and my own interests, but not my friend in the red jacket. His parents were his interest, his concern and his world.

I walked out to my car where I had a bag of left over goodies from the State Fair. I found a key chain in the shape of a deputy’s badge and a bracelet with my agencies name on it. As I walked back in the store, the man with the red jacket was pushing his buggy toward the door. His parents were not far behind. I walked up to him and handed him the key chain and bracelet. “What’s up buddy? I’ve got something for you.” He looked at me with bewilderment, but he didn’t say anything. I’m not sure he was able to speak.

Behind him, his parents approached slowly. His father pushed a buggy which he used more for stability than shopping. His mother walked with a cane, one of those steel ones with a base and four legs on the end of it. The old woman was stove up and bent over, but she had a smile on her face and bright eyes. I said to her, “Looks like you’ve got your helper with you today.” In an old and country voice she replied, “I couldn’t make it without that one there.”

Other mothers with defective children have cast them aside as if their pedigree could not be upheld, or sometimes even worse, they end their lives before they are ever born, but not this woman. She saw no defects, only love for a simple man who would always be a boy. To her he had great worth.