A Chance Encounter

As I wandered through Lusk graveyard today I spotted an old Celtic cross in a quiet shaded corner and so headed towards it to take a couple of photos of the ivy smothered stone… As I approached I noticed someone lying on a grave….asleep…. so I slipped away as quietly as possible and made a new approach noisy enough to wake him… When I got to the grave he had lifted his head and was picking at the stones on the grave… It was then I noticed the uniform of the homeless….. a crumpled haversack along with the Lucozade bottle almost certainly, judging from his speech and eyes, containing methadone… But in his hands a plain metal container, a type I recognised……….and in it, he told me, were the ashes of his mother……he had come to scatter them on a family grave…Whose I don’t know because I couldn’t find it in me to break the contact of his pained stare to glance at the headstone…. I’ll go back tomorrow to photo the cross that brought me to him and then I might know. I advised him on how to lift the stones so some of the ashes would not be blown away into the dark, anonymous corners of her last resting place….We chatted a while because we were comfortable in each other’s company and I left the better for having met him…. My mind told me to give him a few euro having just come from a three hour lunch with friends…. My heart told me no….this was a precious and meaningful time for him…..and maybe even more for me……so my money stayed in my pocket and we parted as equals……. I have just had more luck than him………..just saying….