Faith in Humanity

Yesterday, my friend and I decided to go downtown to window shop and to experience The Grill for the first time. I was a little hesitant about the restaurant at first because money has been really tight for me lately. I always forget about the parking meters beforehand and never bring any coins with me, however, I started keeping a coin cup in my car just for situations like that. As I mentioned before though, money has been really tight for me and my coin cup has just about been emptied.


While walking towards the parking meter, I noticed a homeless standing right behind the meter with a sign around his neck. I paid him no mind and stood in front of the meter shoving in penny after penny while noticing that it made no difference and I was simply wasting my pennies. The man walks over and says "That machine don't take pennies, you know?" Internally, I wanted to be snippy to him because I thought he trying to be rude. His next comment bothered me even more. He said "How much money do you have in your cup?" I just wanted to tell him to leave me alone and that it was none of his business how much money I had.


In that same moment, the man reaches past me and begins putting quarter after quarter into the meter. I just look at him while being completely disgusted of myself for being so judgmental. He smiles and says "There. That should be enough for 2 hours. Will that be long enough?" I was so in awe of his selflessness that I just kept repeating "Thank you. Thank you so much! Thank you!" I had become a broken record. The homeless man who has nothing to his name but a cardboard sign, a scarf, the clothes on his back and a coffee can filled with some spare change people threw his way had helped me.


It isn't just that he helped me monetarily, but he helped restore my faith in humanity...and he did it expecting absolutely nothing in return. This man is an inspiration. I hope I see him again one day so I can tell him how he changed my outlook on life. I've decided to seek and fill the needs of others before my own....as I should have been doing all along.