A homeless man has dry feet today and a comfortable pair of boots, thanks to a passerby and the Bangor Police.

Sergeant Tim Cotton brings me to tears, repeatedly, with his moving Facebook posts about the kindness of strangers. It's okay. They're good tears. But this story hit me harder than most, when I read about a woman named Dawn who noticed a homeless man with big holes in his shoes, walking up hill on a wet day. She did what few others would when she called the Police and offered to buy the man a new pair of boots. As Tim says 'she saw him.' So did Officer Jermaine Walker, who made it possible for the man to have dry feet and warm boots until Dawn could purchase the new ones.

I remember sitting at a stoplight outside Washington D.C. with my ex-husband many years ago. (when he wasn't my 'ex') I was looking out the window at the overpass we were sitting under, and the hill below it. All of a sudden I saw him. A homeless man whose clothes and skin were so dirty that he blended into the landscape. It was literally like one of the 'hidden 3-d image' pictures where, if you un-focus your eyes just right, you can see the secret picture hidden within the bigger one. I gasped out an 'oh my god,' and my husband said 'I know.'

All too often, we pass the homeless without even seeing them. And, if we do see them, we avert our eyes to avoid the guilt of making eye contact and not reaching out to help. In this case, the woman named Dawn did see and didn't avert her eyes. Thank you, Dawn, for improving the life of one man who probably has little to be grateful for. And thank you, Tim Cotton, for once again making me cry.

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