The Bow-Legged Man Does the Right Thing - Part Two

     The vendors were all of one hue, more or less. Native Bahamians. Black. We were located on the north side of the Paradise beach, with the waves of the north Caribbean or middle Atlantic coming into the surf robustly. It was beautiful, sunny, warm and nice. The waves crashed and the tourists enjoyed, with the occasional jet-ski and then later speed boat passing in, to gather customers, or re-fill their gas tank with a plastic jug. 

     The bow-legged man was not the one that I originally saw and mistakenly thought was him... There was another man, much more noticeable. He was the one that I had been made aware of.

    He, the bow-legged one that I was informed about, was much shorter than the man that I saw with the limp at first. Much of his stature, the real bow-legged man, was smaller because of the severe deformity of his legs. They made curves to his sides below him more than an archer's bow when pulled back at its most. It looked hardly possible that he could walk on them, but he did. He trod, or ambled in a hobble, slowly across the fine sands of the Paradise Island public beach. All this I watched, maybe a mile east of the famous Atlantis Casino, beside another pretty nice hotel and its private beach area.

    A close friend spoke to him more at length while I walked further away. He was hustling to survive; he was born that way. He had a wife and children. He claimed that he worked "in the right way". Nothing illegal, he was straight with God and society. He had a good conscience about him, he communicated to those that he spoke to.

    God had not given him normal, straight lower limbs: but this man, a freak in some senses to the casual observer, was trying to be straight with God. With his own life good and straight, a thing that he could control more than his abnormal legs.

    Life is not fair or kind to many of us. We can be at odds with circumstances for many reasons. I know a few ways some of my employers and institutions have done me wrong. I have lost money here and there, sometimes for foolish reasons, but I adapt and move on. I try to make money here, save and scrimp there. Put away some savings for the future, for the rainy days and education of the next generation and my own retirement.

    What is life about? We put bread on the table, we feed others that we are responsible for, we make do with what we have, maybe we try to grow our wealth and prosper. We learn things, we share things. We move on and succeed, or we may fall by the wayside.

    This bow-legged brother has not done that. He moves on, he keeps walking, ambling, hobbling. He will not cheat, he will not break the law.

    He does the right thing, even though by the outward appearances the right thing has not been done to him.

     Can we do the same? Can we say the same?

     Be straight when God has made you bent.

    He makes me wonder. Wonder in a good way.

    God bless him as I think about him at Christmas. I hope he is happy and content.

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    I know a young man, born in the Philippines, who was born with a misshapen arm and hand, which had few fingers. He was adopted by an American who was single and was missing his lower leg. He used a prosthetic leg, and made prosthetics to sell and to donate to those who could not afford them. This single man with the adopted son fought cancer, survived, and then the cancer came back and killed him. The boy he adopted is now an adult and should be fine.

    I hope so. I wish to speak to those who knew them, in order to find out how he is doing.

    God works in mysterious ways.

    

    God bless all of us, this day of Christmas and always.