I ride the shuttle from the Metro stop to my office every work day and many days, he's on the same shuttle with me. He's obviously got some physical disabilities. He's somewhat smaller than most men and although he's not apparently Down's Syndrome, he has a similar look. He wears bottle-thick glasses and in the middle of each of those bottle thick lenses is a small circle with, for lack of a better description, a magnifying glass. Everyday, he's reading...sometimes the New Yorker, sometimes the Washington Post Sunday Magazine...always something serious. But to achieve this, he has to look through a magnifying glass (just like the one my co-worker used at CPD to study fingerprints) and he places it on the page with his glasses resting on it, his nose about 4 inches from the printed page.

Probably one of the greatest gifts I've received from giving up my car and taking public transportation is seeing one brave person after another, refusing to let life's circumstances defeat them and getting on with their life. I'm grateful I share a ride with this guy. Maybe some day, I'll work up enough courage to tell him so.