During my junior year in college, I spent spring break week in Washington, D.C. One night I went out with a group of people to provide soup, sandwiches and hot chocolate to homeless folks around the capital. We rode around in an old bakery truck, stopped in designated spots and set up two stations, one for the food and one for the drink.
At one of the stops, I worked the hot drink station. There was a long line of people in front of me. The night was bitterly, unbearably cold and the wind off the Potomac River cut through my coveralls and chilled me to my bones.
My eyes glazed over from the crowd and the cold, and though I said, “God bless you,” and, “Go in peace,” with every cup of hot chocolate I gave to every person who held out hands to me, I stopped seeing the tired, sad eyes and grizzled faces of the people and started thinking of the gentle warmth of the heater in the truck and in my room back home.
I felt a tug on my arm. I looked down and the face of a little girl came into focus. She was so slight and thin I would have missed her, would not have seen her, were it not for the tugging.
She put her little hand into my hand. In that moment our hands formed a small, open space between us.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, so softly I could barely hear her, would not have heard her were it not for careful listening, “Could you give some hot chocolate for my mom?”
Her mom was sick at home.
This small one did a big thing and came out into the cold and braved the crowds to find something for her mom to eat and drink.
I made a little package of food and drink, put it in her hands, and sent her on her way.
“You’re a kind, wonderful person,” I whispered to her, “And your mom is lucky to have you.”
She walked away into the mass of people and disappeared.
I would never have seen her, would never have heard her, would never have been moved by her kindness, had she not reached out for my hand, had she not created the small, open space between us.
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