Every month, I go and eat breakfast at this semi bougie place around the corner. My breakfast is always a seasonal waffle, shell eggs, and chicken sausage. A date with myself because I enjoy that sort of thing. Anyway, I’d finished half my waffle, and all the trimmings I just mentioned, and a man on a bike road up, and asked if i had extra change for food. What struck me most about his question was that he was hungry. I said yes, even though I really don’t have any extra money to feed another person, and asked him what he liked. When he began to rattle off every breakfast and lunch item on the planet, I knew he was indeed very hungry. I said sir, I don’t have extra enough for all that. Will a stack of pancakes work? He said that it would, and that he would have taken my half eaten waffle that was by that time sandwiched between two dirty plates. That made me let out of gasp/chuckle noise of sorts, and I said no sir you certainly will not eat that, and flagged my server down to add the stack of pancakes topped with fruit to my tab.
This man told me the story of his life while those pancakes were no doubt pushed through the kitchen speedily, and i don’t think anybody had taken the time to ever hear it all until that morning. He was extremely loud and used his hands a lot, and when the server brought out his to go bag, I knew he was going to truly devour them by the grin on his face from six feet away. We wished each other well, and off he went.
A different server than the one I had that had asked if I was okay while I was talking with this fella, said she understood and respected me doing a good deed, but knew that they’d have other visitors more so than usual now who were looking for food on the patio more than likely that day. I apologized for any trouble I’d caused, but when he said he wanted food I knew I had to help. Another man asked me who was hungry, and I pointed towards the 711, and he walked his untouched eggs over there too.
I saw him later riding his bike away from the 711. He told me a man had come up to he and the group of people sharing the food he’d been given and starting yelling at them. He told me he stood up to him, and that man had said he’d call the authorities. I said well sir, you’d better be on your way then. And told him to have a good day and to behave himself. He laughed and said have a blessed day ma’am-you behave too. I knew in that moment I’d never see him again.
This encounter further cemented in my mind that I am indeed in the correct area. I have wonderful neighbors, friends, the basics and I feel safe and secure; even peaceful most days. Some of those are welcome additions to my life. But I would say it is encounters with those that have nothing, and are stuck knee deep in a cycle of poverty so very hard to get out of without an address, that mean the most to me. Those men and women keep me humble and grateful and make my heart grow. The face of Christ can be found in every last one of them.