Common courtesy and kindness to our fellow man takes nothing from us, but to another, it can make their day. This is a story from a college student, who went out of her way to talk to a homeless man. Before she left, he handed her a note…
Today I went to Dunkin’ Donuts and saw a clearly homeless guy sitting on the side of the road and picking up change. Eventually I saw him stroll into Dunkin’, as he was counting his change to buy something I began to get super annoying and talked to him over and over again even when he didn’t really want to talk. Since he had maybe $1 in change I bought him a coffee and bagel and asked him to sit down with me. He told me a lot about how people are usually very mean to him because he’s homeless, how drugs turned him into the person he hated, he lost his mom to cancer, he never knew his dad and he just wants to be someone his mom would be proud of (along with another hours worth of conversation.)
This lovely man’s name was Chris and Chris was one of the most honest and sincere people I’ve ever met. After realizing I really need to get back to class, Chris asked me to wait so he can write something down for me. Handing me a crumpled up receipt he apologized for having shaky hand writing, smiled, and left. I opened his note and this was it:
“I wanted to kill myself today, because of u I now do not. Thank u, beautiful person.”