By Tim Dillenbeck Santa Monica
I walk through Palisades Park. There is a distraught Latina in a wheelchair, crying, weeping, hands clutching her face. How can I walk by and not at least try to console her? How could I?
Now I pass a motionless figure lying sprawled in an alley. How can I pass and not even stop to see if he’s breathing? How could I?
I stare into the sickly-yellow jaundiced eyes of a man slouched listlessly on a bench, stomach distended. How can I not help him to a hospital, knowing, that by doing nothing, he will be dead in a week? How could I?
How can I ignore these people, pretend they don’t exist, believe it’s not my problem? How could I?
I can’t. Because if I do, I will have forsaken my humanity.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 10, 2008. Read the original PDF.