After an evening of sightseeing in downtown San Francisco, my husband suggested I take a few of the older children to ride home on a cablecar. Our young tourists were only too happy with this prospect, waving goodbye to Daddy and their three-year-old sister, who were assigned to meet us at home with the van. 

Just as the children settled down to their seats in the indoor cabin, a graying homeless woman hobbled on, looking confusedly left and right. The older girls instinctively made room for her, and she fell into the bench between five-year-old Patrick and his sisters with a thud.

She was already in mid-conversation before even hitting the seat, telling me immediately that she was a Vietnam Veteran. "It's Fourth of July, and I'm a Vietnam Veteran," she insisted, "but nobody cares. It don't matter to them." The row of passengers across from us fell as silent as a radio unplugged, all eyes soberly fixed out windows and in books. "I am clean," she continued loudly to me — or to no one in particular, "I am a Vietnam Vet'ran."

With that, Patrick, who was paying no attention to her exclamations, jumped up to get a better view. He bounded past the woman and seemed bent on reaching the outdoor cabin. "Patrick," I called to him urgently, sit down — you could fall out!"

The woman turned in her seat to glare at me, as if I had been interrupting. "Nobody ever listens to me!" she shouted. "Nobody cares! Nobody listens!" "Oh, excuse me," I said, weakly, "I was listening, but I was afraid my little boy would…" "Nobody ever listens!" she cut me off, pulling a white hood over her head so that it almost covered her eyes and leaning forward to rock back and forth. "You are going to push me over the edge, you and all the rest of you! You don't care! Nobody cares!" The passengers opposite kept their eyes trained out windows and in books, the natural human response when closed in with an erratic person.

Rattled by her display, Patrick cuddled up a bit closer to me, so that there was room for a person to sit between himself and the woman. A wave of passengers clambered in at a stop. "Look at them all!" she sobbed, still rocking. "I guarantee not one of these people will be willing to sit down next to me! I'm clean, but not one of them will sit here! Not one of them will sit next to me!" With that, Patrick, who had been clinging to me, relaxed a bit, inching ever so slightly toward her. He gingerly pushed my shawl into the empty place as if trying to fill up the seat.

She noticed the shawl out of the corner of her eye and stopped rocking. "You are trying to fill up that seat, aren't you young man?" He did not answer but looked back at me. She continued, her face and tone suddenly serene, "You don't want me to be alone, do you?" The entire cablecar held its breath, and a few eyes even peeped up from books. "Thank you," she murmured, "thank you young man, for showing me some love." He did not look away, but listened, unblinking.

"Young man," she continued, her poor withered face wreathed in smiles, "you showed a woman named Roxanne some love tonight and gave her hope. You are a fine young man, and do you know why you are such a fine young man?" Speaking now for the first time, Patrick softly whispered, "Why?"

"Because," she said, "you have a good mother, a mother who teaches you not to look down on anyone." Hearing her response, Patrick turned his head back to me, and from the depths of his innocent little heart he said, "I love you, Mom," planting a kiss on my cheek. Several "awwwws" from the other passengers were audible, and Roxanne beamed approvingly as the cablecar ground to a halt. "Thank you, young man, thank you!" she repeated, rising and stepping toward the exit. The girls called after her, "Happy Fourth of July," as merrily as if she was packing to leave a picnic, and she replied in kind, "Happy Fourth of July!" knocking on the glass behind us for a few more waves. As the cable car rumbled on, we could see her staggering from the street to the curb, almost too impaired to make the step.

Although I felt a measure of relief to roll away in safety with the children, two quotes from the Bible began playing in my head, repeating themselves as insistently as the rhythm of Roxanne's rocking:

"Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." (Matthew 8:20)

"'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'" (Matthew 25:40)

Our Lord not only did not look away from people like Roxanne. He sought them out as companions and friends, living among them and asking us to treat them with mercy and love.

Our trip completed, we set out for home still chattering about the night's excitement. In the distance, a tall man carrying a toddler wrapped in a long pink poncho was walking toward us, the steep terrain no hindrance to his steady, quick step.

And the children sprang up the hill to meet their father.