Stories of Kindness from Around the World

I'm new to this site but instantly fell in love...I love that I am sitting here typing my first story.

Pretty much everyday I go to pickup my mail at a UPS Store in Santa Monica. I hunt around in back for a parking space and most of the time seem to capture the last one available. This is my forced march - to fetch the mail and back to work..to life. Busy.

The parking lot being behind the building, I walk around the front passing a Krispy Kreme donut store, a travel store, and See's Candies before reaching my destination. On most every occasion, there are one or two, sometime three homeless people out front. They are usually directly in front of the Krispy Kreme or down the middle of the block in front of the US Post Office. I 94% of the time do not stop and barely ever make eye contact. I've been getting my mail at this place since 1998...I'm not keeping a perfect count here, but I'm sure the vast majority of the time I do my best to not have to interact with the homeless. They are usually on a pretty quick rotation - the face change alot - don't often see the same person for more than a week or two.

But lately there has been this woman who looks to be in her 40's to late 50's. Long messy hair, dirty clothes always with a jacket. She does wear glasses and seems to need them, they're thick. But most striking of all her features - she has very few teeth left and the ones that do remain stick out and are hard not to witness. I think she's been around for a few weeks, maybe longer. In some ways I am surprised she is still there...where do I think they all go???

This past Satuday, I was coming back from a trip to San Diego - a really good work trip. I swung over to the mailbox at around 5pm - they're closed by this time but I use the key to enter the front and grab my mail. Being that fewer people get their mail later in the day, there are fewer homeless standing around - none it seems. It is on my way back to my car, walking around to the back of the building, I see someone walking almost towards me. Thinking it to be just another customer or patron, I focused my eyes on the person. Her teeth jumped right out. She quickly mentioned she was hoping to get $2 dollars to purchase food - something specific but now I cannot recall. Today I couldn't just walk right by. And strangely, I didn't want to. It was an easy choice today, give the $2.

It was a moment of pure joy.

And then the best part.

I had already turned away from her to my car, thinking she had quickly walked away. But her voice called out, "God Bless You and thank you so, so much. This is so nice of you." I turned around. Her smile brought with it the biggest wave of gratitude I've felt in this life, teeth or no teeth. I shared a beautiful moment, and she had a beautiful smile.