Martin was a man.
That
was the best and the worst of it. He lived in room that served as his
bedroom and sometimes as his kitchen. He had no friends to speak of but
then he had no enemies either.
His
parents, Fred and Annie had had high hopes for their boy. They had
fought so hard to have a child that when Martin finally did arrive, he
was their moon and stars and sun.
He had a good heart and some might say he had the best of hearts.
He
tried to be strong for himself and his family and he made sure he
smiled every day but he did find, as we all do, that there are people in
this world who won’t let a soul breathe. He didn’t judge them too
harshly as they had their own reasons. He
would simply let the world get him down for a while, pull the covers
over his head then after a sleep he’d feel better once again.
Martin
had had his dreams of course. He’d wanted to be a professional
footballer then he’d wanted to be a famous actor and other times he’d
wanted to sing in front of a million people. After his mother’s death
he’d wished he’d been the person who had found the cure for cancer.
Martin
never became any of those things, not because he lacked talent but
because he felt there were better people than him. Those who knew how
good they were, those were the ones that deserved success.
He
dreamed of love and being loved but it never came to be or at least he
may have had his eyes closed as it was passing. He watched his school
friends grow and marry and have children and he wished them well and
just sometimes as he sat in the park and saw the parents and their
children play, he wished that he was them.
Now
don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t jealous, not for a second because the
world shared out its good and bad and with his parents Martin had had
the best of all worlds.
Sometimes
he wished that he’d had a brother or sister, just someone to visit at
Christmas. To have nieces or nephews that he could buy presents and
birthday gifts.
Martin
saw every single day as a bonus. He wasn’t lonely and he wasn’t a
loner, he just felt people had better things to do with their time than
talk to him.
But he watched the world and he saw the people and their troubles and without letting anyone know he would try and help.
When
he had a little drop of extra coins in his life, he would put the money
in an envelope and leave it on the step of some deserving door; the
lady whose husband who’d left her alone, the child who needed an
operation, the man who just wanted a day away from the house.
Martin
wasn’t a saint, not by any stretch of the imagination. Martin had hurt
people and he’d wasted opportunities and most importantly he’d wasted
time.
Because we all have our own ideas of what sin is, but to Martin wasting time was up there with the big ones.
He
sent Christmas and Valentine cards to the lonely souls in the street.
He sent postcards to the old lady who, like him, had no family. She
probably didn’t know who or where it came from but the important thing
was that someone had written to her.
You see none of what he did was ever big but it mattered to the people he helped.
This
world is awash with lonely souls and to someone like Martin who could
appreciate that point, he felt it was his place to do something about
it.
Martin’s gone now and I’m not sure if he moved or just closed his eyes for the last time.
No
one really noticed that there was no longer a light on in Martin’s
house but they did notice there were no longer little gifts on the door
step, or that cards were no longer being sent.
Martin had accepted that what he had been given in his life, was his life and he had used it all in the best way he could.
He sometimes smiled, he sometimes cried and he nearly always laughed.
It had been a life that only he knew, it had been unique to him and it had been a brilliant one.
bobby stevenson 2013
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