Dark Corners

It was late when I pulled up to the grocery store.
I’m always forgetting at least one thing.
One particular cashier loves to yell out,
“Just couldn’t stay away, huh?”

I slung my purse over my shoulder and was walking, looking down,
when a voice from a dark corner made me jump.
I hadn’t even seen him there, slumped up against the wall.
A young man, maybe 30.
He appeared to be homeless.
His expression like he had been beaten.

“Miss, would you like to buy one of my cd’s?
I’m just trying to do something to buy some food.”
I could only barely make him out, at first.
“That depends,” I smiled, “On what kind of music it is.”
“It’s reggae,” he answered, “and you can have it for any donation you could spare.
I’m just trying to help myself,” he said.

Now, I’m not normally one to do deals with strange men in dark corners at night,
But something in me knew I was safe.
I didn’t particularly need a cd,
but reggae does remind me of high school summer nights, and those are some of the very best ones,
so I told him that I’d like to buy one.

But my biggest decision that night wasn’t if I wanted to buy that CD.
My biggest decision came when I opened my wallet and considered how much to give.
My biggest decision was whether I felt this other human being deserved just my pocket change, or something that I had worked for.
“Any donation you could spare.”
What did that mean to me?

I had plenty of cash.
I’d just gotten payed.
I ignored other people’s voices in my head saying he probably wouldn’t use it for anything good, or that he’d probably just spend it all on drugs.
After all, when you’re truly giving, what difference does it make what happens after the gift leaves your hand?
All we can do is our own part.
The choices afterwards are up to the one who receives.

So I took the cd he was holding.
It was wrapped in a sheet of newspaper.
I stuck it in my purse, then, instead of loose change that meant zero sacrifice,
I pulled out a larger bill, and told myself it was fine.
I’d just skip my Starbucks this week.

His face as he took that bill, I will never forget.
“Wow! Are you serious?!”
He turned it over in his hands,
I told him I was serious, and said, “May God bless you tonight,” and I went on inside.

A couple of minutes later, as I stood in the check-out line,
I watched as that guy came in to the store.
He didn’t see me watching him behind the display of Royal news;
but as I did, I saw him go straight to where the produce was.
He gathered 2 oranges, and an avocado, a basket of strawberries, too.
Next he picked up a lemon, and I watched him smile at it, elated like he was reunited with a friend,
and he held it up to his face, closed his eyes, and just breathed it in before adding it to his growing pile.
What I was watching was a man acting like he had just been given some gold,
and I cried standing there, in that line, watching him and his armful of fruit.

The amount that I would sacrifice now nothing in comparison to what my heart was taking in.

19 years ago I was a single mother,
barely making ends meet.
I’ve had points in my life where I’ve been so low my head could feel the
tremors of the earth.
And though I haven’t been homeless, sitting against a store-front, I know exactly what it feels like to fight as hard as you can to be all that you have means to,
and then to just pray it’s enough.

We have to keep each other going.
What else are we are here to do if not stand hand-in-hand?

I heard last night that every year there is a dust storm in Africa that is so big it can be seen from space.
The swirls of dust then travel on the wind all the way to South America, where that dust settles on the Amazon basin.
The miraculous thing is that that dust,
carried from underneath the feet of African people just happens to be the exact perfect fertilizer for the plants of the Amazon.
That fertilized basin then produces exactly enough oxygen to keep all the rainforest animals alive. Just exactly enough.
The evaporated water from those fertilized plants then creates an atmospheric river that, when it next hits the Andes,
turns into the water, now rich with diatoms, that keep all of the sea creatures alive.

When I got home that night after my trip to the store, I pulled the cd out of my purse.
I hadn’t really looked at it, since it had been dark, but when I did,
this is what I saw:
A hand in a hand.
“…Wrapped in compassion,” I whispered.

You see,
kindness is like that dust storm.
spreading and nourishing all of life,
but it doesn’t have to start so big that it can be seen from space.
It can start with a single speck
that lands up against the wall of a store-front.
Compassion for all the dark corners.

Mom Outnumbered

Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.