A little boy in a big cowboy hat

I was on my way home from Mass on a recent Sunday morning when something caught my eye.

It was a little boy in a big brown cowboy hat nearly as large as he was. He was wearing it proudly, along with shiny cowboy boots, and he was pulling something up a small set of stairs leading to a front porch.

It was a wheelchair.

An old one at that - the kind on which the wheels fold toward the center when you lift on the back of the chair. He had reached the step next to the top by the time I spotted him. His face was a picture of determination.

I wished I had a camera to catch the moment in the late-morning sunlight.

I thought about stopping to help him with his task, because he couldn't have been more than 5 years old. But as I thought about how it might appear to have a grown man stop his car and approach a young boy he doesn't know, I decided against it. An innocent gesture might be perceived as something far more sinister.

He was just one step from the porch, I rationalized. I wondered who the wheelchair was for. There are no ramps leading up to that old poch in the old shotgun house on West Douglas.

Perhaps he was there visiting his grandparents (or great-grandparents). Perhaps this was his way of lending a hand to someone he loved. Perhaps it was a "toy" he was going to take a ride in on the porch.

I knew the answers to none of those possibilities.

I just know I'd caught a glimpse of a remarkable scene - one that sticks with me to this day. I do wish I'd had a camera with me, though.