It could’ve been me; but just because it wasn’t, that doesn’t mean I deserve better. I could be homeless. I could be disabled or paralyzed. I could be suffering from a horrible disease. I could be a minority, misjudged or misunderstood.

Though we pass each other on the street, it seems that our lives never intersect or intertwine because we are so often afraid of what we aren’t familiar with.

Though we may grant each other the courtesy of political correctness, we don’t take the time to show each other true respect as another human being.

We acknowledge each other with our lips, but our hearts are far from one another.

Do we see a mentally disabled person and talk to them like a normal human? Most of us glance away and pretend we didn’t see him or her.

I remember Brian. He was one of the students in the special needs room at Ames High School that I looked forward to seeing during my study halls when I helped as a volunteer in the disabled room.

Brian was as sweet as can be and entirely innocent, but most people were afraid of him just because they didn’t know how to relate to him.

Brian was born with a severe mental disorder. At the age of 20, he still couldn’t tell his left hand from his right. His sentences were short and choppy.

He sat with his legs tightly crossed, his long, gray, Velcro shoes hanging on his outwardly-pointing feet.

He always rotated his head sideways like an owl to look at me. With his mouth wide and smiling, suddenly, he would just burst with excitement and say, “April. I like you.”

Although he may look odd, talk funny and walk differently, his life is every bit as valuable as mine; and his situation in life could easily have been my own.

In another example, last year I met a homeless man at the shelter here in Ames.

Sunk in an old arm chair, Melvin Gries, a homeless 35-year-old, fixed his gaze on the old TV in front of him. A small plastic grocery bag, containing four extra T-shirts, rested on his lap. It was all he owned.

At the age of six, Melvin was first placed into a foster home to escape his verbally, physically and sexually abusive parents.

He endured the verbal abuse and other horrors of 11 different foster homes before he decided to live on his own. When he was 17, he was all alone.

At the age of 19, Melvin was living under a bridge in Des Moines.

“I had friends that I could have lived with, but they were into LSD and stuff, or I would’ve stayed with them. I used their shower sometimes,” Melvin said.

Melvin was bone thin. He was six feet tall and only weighed 115 pounds. His skin was pulled tight against his protruding cheekbones. His eyes were small, sunken and glazed-over. He rubbed them a lot, nervously, with shaking hands.

“I have alcohol problems,” Melvin admitted, “I still relapse. I try my hardest. I know it don’t help my depression.”

Melvin’s depression became serious after the death of his fianc‚, less than a month before their wedding date. He was hospitalized numerous times after the incident.

Melvin wasn’t dangerous. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t scary. He was a sweet man with a huge heart, a nightmarish past and little hope for the future.

“I pray for guidance,” Melvin said, “I pray for all of the other people who are worse off than I am — some people are outside right now.”

It rips my heart out to tell you that Melvin’s life ended tragically. A week after our interview, he went to a nearby hotel room and hung himself with a belt.

Not many people choose self-destruction when they have alternatives; and anyone could’ve been born into his situation. Melvin didn’t deserve the life he led.

The haunting thought of, “That could have been me,” overcomes me when I think of Melvin’s story. It makes my complaints about life seem infinitesimally futile.

Other times, I remember the cheerful, happy Brian, and I realize that I didn’t deserve my brain, and maybe Brian did. But, then, who is to say Brian isn’t happier just the way he is?

We need to shed ourselves of the pride we have for things that we didn’t earn. We need to appreciate the things we have that we didn’t deserve.

And we need to look at and respect every human being through an attitude that says, “It could’ve been me.”

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April Goodwin is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.