A stranger fed me when I was hungry ...
A Thanksgiving tribute to all of you.
Long ago, when I lived in Boston post-college, during a particularly lean stretch I occasionally resorted to living on coffee during the day and a single slice of pizza at night. Fortunately, I was never too far from my next paycheck, but sometimes in between pay periods, funds would run low and the fridge would be empty. I’m one of the lucky ones because at any moment I could easily have called my Mom in Florida and if she’d ever thought I was even for one minute hungry, she’d have sprouted wings herself and flown up to Boston by nightfall to whip up my favorite comfort food: Mama’s chili with rice, scallions or red onions sprinkled on top.
But I was stubbornly trying to “make it on my own,” so I didn’t let on to my Mom when my cupboards were bare — and besides I always knew I’d get paid soon.
Once I was caught so short before payday, that I was literally down to my last couple of dollars — the story below tells about how a stranger noticed that I was maybe not doing as well as I could be, cared, took action, and fed me.
Before we get to that essay, an update: I heard from All Faiths Food Bank today, and so far, MC/THINK readers have contributed almost $2,200 to the THINK Thanksgiving holiday meal drive. Earlier today, I kicked in my November earnings as a writer, as well, and collectively, we’ve pooled enough donation dollars to provide 82 families with a holiday box of turkey and all the trimmings — a box that can feed up to five people. Put another way, that’s over 400 men, women, and children in our community who will have a holiday meal because of people like you!
Thank you to all who donated to the drive … and even if you didn’t donate financially to the drive, just being a part of the THINK community — just being a subscriber, whether free or paid, means you’ve played a role in supporting me on this platform and therefore played a role in making this drive a success. You’ve all played a role in putting food on someone’s table.
This essay below was published in the Tampa Tribune in 2007, so undoubtedly some of you have read it before, but the generosity of your donations and support reminded me of my own experience with such kindness, so it seems like a good time to share it again.
Kindness travels … on the wings on an angel
Years ago, late on a Sunday afternoon, I found myself sitting in my favorite café in the North End of Boston, calculating whether to buy another cappuccino or save the few dollars I had in my pocket for subway tokens to get back and forth to work that week. Post-college, I was broke, as usual, and relying on cigarettes and coffee to keep the stomach from rumbling too much.
Suddenly, this big Italian, an older guy who worked the counter, approached my table. With his jet-black hair, crooked smile and bellowing voice, he had the charisma of a playboy, and as I soon learned, the heart of an angel.
He asked if I’d “watch the shop” while he stepped out. “Sure,” I said, figuring he was going out to buy a pack of smokes.
He returned about thirty minutes later carrying a paper sack and went behind the counter. Shortly, he approached my table again -- only this time carrying a plate piled with pasta and peasant bread, and a glass of red wine. He set it down in front of me. “You look a little hungry,” he said, and walked back to his post behind the counter.
I was stunned. But not so stunned that I didn’t scarf down every morsel. When I finished, I left my few measly dollars as a thank you and, belly full, pockets empty, headed home.
I’ve never been an overly religious person, don’t go to any one church, and question sometimes how God exists in a world so full of suffering. But that day, as I walked home through the darkening city streets, I felt wonder at the simplicity and grace of what had happened:
I was hungry. And I was fed.
Surely, it seemed, an angel had interceded between heaven and earth, connecting two mortals through kindness.
That man’s action – whether guided by an angel or not – nourished me on a day when I didn’t know when or where my next meal was coming from. He didn’t just feed my stomach; he fed a part of me I didn’t even know was hungry.
And despite the cruelty and indifference in the world I’ve seen since -- the arrogant impatience, the lies, the outright meanness, the disappointing characters of men and women -- I still believe, perhaps a bit naively, in the fundamental goodness of people. A belief that had its incipience in that long ago unexpected meal from an unexpected stranger.
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” -- Michelangelo
I’ve come to believe that at our most basic and yet highest function, our earthly lives are a mission to carve away the petty and ugly aspects of our natures and unfetter the angel residing within.
When we act in kindness, music begins; a drumming beat reverberates through and out of us toward others, traveling through time and space like some kind of ephemeral sounding of the heart, thrumming at a frequency we can hear only if we are willing. Truth is the frequency on which kindness travels, and, it is truth – acted upon -- that sets us free.
We can’t know the distance a kindness, once made, will travel. How it will be received and passed on, transmuted and re-gifted, countless, needful, hopeful, times, over and over, ad infinitum.
We can’t know. But we can believe.
WISHING YOU A SAFE AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Beautifully written, as always. Keep reminding us of our higher selves and calling us out when we fall short - much love and appreciation ❤️