i was almost at the station and i heard someone yell my name. well...at least her version of my name. i looked around and it was cleo. i wrote alittle about cleo in one of my earlier blogs. she came walking up to me...pretty fast. i immediately started calculating how much money i had in my pocket and if i had any more cigarettes i could give her. i keep a pack of them to give to homeless people when i can. she was smiling....which isn't unusual for cleo. she smiles alot. i told you she has very delicate features and probably is a pretty woman beneath the wear and tear that being homeless takes on you...especially a woman. this morning though she was wound up about something. i thought i was going to listen to her tell me something along the lines of how somebody did something to her...the amtrak police were harrasssing her or she was cold as heck. but she did something that stopped me in my tracks. here's what she did.
she said..you know, you buy me coffee sometimes and give me cigarettes. i said...sure...want one this morning? i cringed because i don't have much lett. she said...no...no....listen....i found ten dollars this morning. i want to give you a cigaret and buy you a cup of coffee. you've always been nice to me bro. i was really...really taken aback. i really didn't know what to do or to say. i said..cleo...are you allowed in the train station? she said...no...but i'll walk to the bp station with you. again i was taken aback. it's cold this morning. it's snowing. so we walked. it really wasn't that far...maybe half a mile or so. she bought me that cup of coffee and was smiling the whole time. she gave me that cigarette and then said ...here take two more for later. i don't smoke btw...but she doesn't know that. then ...she was gone. so i continued on the to the resource center.
now..this may seem alittle uneventful to you. but think about this. a woman who lives on the street and has nothing. i mean absolutely nothing. she finds ten dollars. that's alot to someone who has nothing...trust me. so she buys me a coffee and gives me a couple of cigarettes. trivial...right? not to me it wasn't...not this morning. it was perfect. she showed me what simple acts of kindness and simple acts of generosity can do and what impact they can have when you don't even know it. she gave me sort of a renewal about what i'm doing and what i want to do. she showed me that even the very smallest acts of humanity can stay with a person and have a postive impact on their life. she showed me what paying forward means. if cleo thought about it...maybe i can get one or two more to think about it.
thank you cleo. think i'll write again tomorrow. think i'll keep on trying to push forward with what i want to do.
see you around town