Give

I come in the fruit store. There is a guy there asking if he can take some food that are pass due date, the cashier says no… He had a quick glance, somehow as if he knew me, or if he was aware that I was aware…

I go buy my food, chosing some vegetable to make a healthy and cheap lunch. I buy myself a candy bar, have my own bag, 10$ lunch, all good.

I leave the fruit store to buy some computer memory for the office. I met the same guy on the street. Again he ask for a part of the candy bar I was chewing on. I motion negatively, mostly as a defense mechanism. Then I felt bad. For some reason. Maybe I was hungry, maybe he was hungry. I don’t know.

I got out of the computer store, the feeling was still with me. “Just go back to that street corner, it’s not far” I tell myself. I am not sure and decide to cross the street instead, but there are cars coming on both side. In distance I see him begging for food from car to car. I come up to the corner street and ask him if it’s okay I buy him food. He has scars in his face, maybe from drug, I don’t know.

In the fruit store the cashier is not too happy to see him back, I tell her that I will buy food for him. He choose yogurt and a chocolate milk, I ask if he wants more, he take an egg sandwich. I feel uncomfortable. I want that moment to pass faster. At the cashier, I give her my card, she smiles to me, understand what I am doing. I want to leave, she give me back my card, I say “Bonne appetit” with a french accent, but I can’t get away. He comes out at the same time as me, I shake his hand. I am not sure what is my judgment, he tells me his name ‘Matthew’, I say great, and leave…

I look back when I cross the street, he stayed in the entrance of the fruit store. Something in me wants to burst out, I can’t keep it in and start to cry. I don’t know why I cry, but it feel liberating.

Stepping out of my comfort zone, but from a place of intuition, not by simply forcing myself to act generously. Why did I choose to give to him instead of someone else? There was something I needed to do and I did it, from my heart. It’s a great reminder of how it feels to act from a place of compassion and intuitive knowledge. I often wonder how to act, what is my life purpose and all these crazy question. But sometime I live a short experience like this one and I understand that the path to live a purposeful life is to follow and act upon these intuitive glimpses…