The Difference

A rain-battered, paint-faded taxi rolled to a stop in front of the large, red-brick apartment building. The brakes whined in protest. After a moment, the back passenger door opened, and the single fare clambered onto the soaked sidewalk. The taxi drove away, leaving him all alone.

If the man noticed that the rain was steadily drenching his suit jacket, he must not have cared. The water droplets dripped down his face, and he closed his eyes wearily. He stood motionless on the sidewalk in the falling rain.

Dusk was falling, and the street lights flickered into existence. The sidewalks were barren—an anomaly for a city that was usually alive with the constant bustle of people going about their lives with the determined focus of those bent on just making it through another day.

Now, though, the man stood alone on the sidewalk that systematically wound its way through the concrete jungle. For a moment, he looked as though he had lost that focus. He looked exhausted—bags were beneath his eyes, his face was unshaven, and his hair was disheveled. He looked one second away from falling apart, from collapsing to his knees in despair. Why was he still struggling to make it in this city?

He came to the city when he was a younger man full of hopes and dreams—not just of making it through another day in the city but of making a difference in the world around him. His younger self seemed so naïve; so far away from who he was now.

Over the years, he had suffered disappointments and setbacks. His hopes and dreams were battered and dented. Some were sorrowfully discarded and abandoned. Some he exchanged for better ones. Others he still clung to. The man had changed from when he was younger, but he still clung to his hopes and dreams. Why? What was the point?

There, as the man wavered on the brink of despair, he heard a faint noise. It cut through the veil of rain and exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. It came from within the apartment building. It was a sound like the sweet peal of bells that set one’s heart aflutter, sweeter than any other sound known to mankind. It was the sound that kept the man from collapsing in a heap on the street. It was a sound that made him open his eyes and smile—despite everything that had happened that day. It was the sound of laughter.

He recognized that laughter. The man’s smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and it changed his face. He looked reinvigorated—like he could handle anything the world threw at him. He heard the sound of laughter again. He looked up, searching for its source.

The man saw an open window and a child’s face beaming down at him from the third floor. A young girl waved at him excitedly. Her whole face was filled with joy. The man smiled at his daughter. He waved back to her in the window and then walked briskly toward the red-brick apartment building’s front door. He fished a ring of brass keys from the depths of his jacket pocket and unlocked the door, stepping out of the cold rain.

There was a bounce in his step as he climbed the wooden stairs to the third floor. There was a light in his expression that he didn’t have earlier. The man opened the apartment door to his home and was greeted with delighted laughter and warmth therein. His face reflected that joy, and all his weariness and exhaustion faded away. As he so often was, the man was reminded of why he still clung to his hopes and dreams—why he was still determined not to just make it through the day.

His hopes and dreams had changed from when he was a younger man—that was true. He had changed. He wasn’t the same man as he was before. But that wasn’t a bad thing. Now his hopes and dreams weren’t just for himself. They were for his family—for his wife and daughter. His life wasn’t just for him—it was for them. Life was all the better for that fact. It didn’t matter how hard he had to work or how long and difficult the days were. At the end of the day, if the man didn’t make a difference in the world around him, he could live with that. If he could make a difference in his family’s lives—that was enough for him. That was more than enough. Knowing that made all the difference in the world.

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