A Hundred Dollar Bill

So he stirred his coffee, mixing the bitter-bean liquid with enough cream and sweetener to make it tolerable (not Seattle's best, regardless of how popular the brand is).  

Her words kept ringing in his ear. 

"My kids would be better off if I was dead.  I can't even pay for the hotel room tonight... no, I don't have any money until tomorrow... I don't know what I'm gonna do."

It was a private conversation, but he had slowed down as he was walking into the store, to hear something that caught part of his attention.  The grocery store is a place where many conversations happen.  And as he had walked in to buy legal addictive stimulants, he couldn't help but hear her words.  Then he was struck by the sincerity, the emotion in the conversation she was having through the phone.

"I'll have a Grande... room for cream."  Nothing stopped the pursuit of coffee.  But she was behind him.  Standing inside the sliding doorway to the store.  And as he waited and went to stir, something more was stirring inside of him.  How could he hear that conversation and just go on as if nothing touched him.

He glanced back at her and took in an older black lady wearing scrubs, probably worked in a doctor's office or something, she looked tired, upset.  But was it really his place to do anything?

Inside, a voice kept telling him to go.....

"Ma'am, ma'am.  I need you to have this!" as he handed her the emergency $100 bill he kept in the back of his wallet.  Her eyes opened wide with the quick gesture of pushing the bill into her hand. "Just those things you said, you have to promise me not to do anything.  Take care of your kids.  Just for tonight.  I hope that it's enough."  

He was walking away when she asked, tears already filing each crevice of her already weary face, "can I pay you back, please".

"No, you already have," he replied.

That Hundred dollars won't mean much to him.  He'll go on without missing out on a meal or having a place to sleep that's warm and dry.  But maybe she was really needing the money, and maybe it will help her get through the night.  He'll never know, but it's the fact that in the moment, a voice that wouldn't let go of his spirit allowed him to reach out and touch another's life in a good, a positive way.  And isn't that more of what this life is really about?

That was my day.