Dignity

I'm used to this stretch of rush hour traffic. It takes me along a busy city thoroughfare where you see people who are easily labeled.

The Bum: He's the man dressed in two coats, one black out the outside, a purple hoodie on the inside of that, pants that are too loose, stuffed down into boots even as an autumn sun beats down. He peers into the faces of passersby, probably not wanting a handout but just an acknowledgement of his personhood.

The Trafficked Woman: She walks slowly up the street, always with a glance behind her. Peering, looking for something or someone. She isn't necessarily scantily clad. But I know her when I see her.

The Dude-Bros: These are the fresh-faced college boys who've got the world by the tail. They're usually laughing, entering or exiting a seedy dive bar. Maybe on their way to a baseball game, maybe back to campus, but they're never looking back. Always ahead with chins tilted upward.

The Factory Guys: Steel-toed shoes, dusty hair and clothes and squinted eyes adjusting to sunlight are their hallmark. They plod across the street, staring into a far-off place exhausted from whatever it is they do in the factory.

I begin to make my usual turn and wait for her to cross the street.

She holds her head as if she's royalty walking the red carpet. Eyes cast down and over her nose, she's gliding in between The Bum, The Trafficked Woman, The Dude-Bros and The Factory Guys, choosing not to see them.

She must be around sixty, I figure. She's model tall and there's a willowy-ness about her. Her head is turbaned with a tattered floral pink kerchief and she's wearing soft blue elastic-waist jeans. House slippers might've adorned her feet.

I imagine that no matter her circumstances now, someone from her long ago had once told her she mattered, that she was worth something -- perhaps worth more than the people around her would ever credit her for. That she had dignity because she was born with it -- just like everyone else.

Then I wondered if the others I so easily labeled knew they had that same dignity too.