I often have days where I am walking through the city, with my headphones in, slow paces and a coffee in one hand, admiring the people around me. Everyone in their own little bubbles, going about their days, running their errands, heading to work, running to appointments. Very few people stop to acknowledge others around them and i’m not talking in the sense where people switch their attention to an attractive person walking by. I am talking about the people that don’t tend to get single look… where passersby hope that if they don’t look at them, they will don’t see what the other side live like, what they don’t see won’t hurt them.
I often see the same man sitting on the street whilst walking to university. An old soul, who must be in his sixties if not older. That is the first thing that took me by surprise on my first encounter, how can somebody pass by an elder without a thought in the world? How cruel is this world? Then the next thing I see is a small board next to him. “I used to be in be in the military, serving this country and now I am here on the streets, a homeless man.” Too many emotions fill my head at this point…Are people really that un-sympathetic and egoistic? Just because it is not happening to them or a member of their family, they pass them without a care in the world. A man in such a state doesn’t require money, just somebody in a kind heart who is prepared to look lower than eye view to actually see that he is just is hungry and thirsty. As a person who fasts through Ramadan every year, I understand the state of hunger and thirst one can feel at the end of a 12 hour fast and even then I get to eat before sunrise and after sunset everyday. I can begin to imagine how he feels after not consuming any food or water for several days on end. Nobody deserves to go through that.
Further down, near the Starbucks I stop at almost every day that I have lectures I saw a lady in a hijab, fully clothed from head to toe, but in a worn state. A homeless lady that still honours her faith, regardless of her situation or predicament. That is a lady has a strong will and a lot more fight left in her. Whilst in the line to purchase my overpriced branded coffee, I took a step back and thought… I come into this coffee shop on a regular basis, hand over my piece of plastic and walk out with my cup of coffee without a care in the world… How lucky am I?! Whilst a lady down the street begs for somebody to even noticed her and offer her a drink of water. Water… something that everybody takes from granted because it comes out of your kitchen and bathroom taps. I left the queue, went back and popped into Tesco and bought her a bottle of water and croissant. I have never seen anyone so happy to receive such basic necessities, it warmed my heart. However, what really got me was when I turned back half way down the road, she was still looking at me with a beaming smile on her face. That is what I call true appreciation and I would do it day after day to get that feeling that I have helped one more homeless person.
“Behind every face, lies a story. They is a reason they are the way they are. They aren’t just like that because they wanted to be, something in the past created them and sometimes it is impossible to fix them.”
A little thought goes a long way…
