Early this brisk morning on New Year’s Day, while I walked past the Church on my corner, I saw a homeless guy sitting on the steps. We made eye-contact and he asked me, in a foreign accent, if I lived around here. I was startled and initially put off by the question but I answered him. In my typical smart-aleck, suspicious New York style, I said: ” Yeah. What about you?” His response, however, pierced my defensiveness when he said:” I’m really cold. Do you have an old jacket to give me?” I surprised myself and said: “I’ll have a look”. Coming back downstairs with an old coat and scarf, I wondered if he would still be there. He was. As I approached him, I saw him faintly smile as he eagerly took the clothes and put them on. It was a bittersweet moment. Just a few hours early, celebrating the New Year, I was thinking about how much material stuff some people have, much more than they could ever need and the inequity of it all. Mixed feelings of warmth and a profound sadness came over me as I walked away:” Paying it forward”. I thought. At the risk of sounding corny– ‘there but for fortune go I” came to mind. When I got back upstairs, I told my fiancé about what happened. She was touched and she wondered with me about the feeling of empathy. “Where does it come from?” she asked. I don’t really know where it comes from. A basic human kindness, perhaps? Maybe. Where ever it came from, it provided a fleeting, momentary balance to our otherwise imperfect world.
