My youngest daughter sent me a message saying that she was “going downtown” to serve meals to the homeless. She had cooked, served and eaten her own Thanksgiving meal and was preparing to serve those less fortunate. I was heart-swollen, and there might have occurred an incident of rain on my face: she had kept something from what she had seen.
A recently published commentary reiterated something I’d learned in another publication: The poor donate to the poor a greater percentage of their income than those with greater resources. I cannot say why this is, but it appears that there are things in the past lives of the poor that stimulate the urge to give. For those who have lived past a time of want, the gift comes from an understanding lacking in smug paternalism. None of my three children would recognize the “want” and hunger that the chronic homeless endure, but all three have seen their parents display a generosity of the human spirit.
When my two youngest would visit with me in St. Louis, I would allow them to walk together the half-block to the convenience store. They liked the independence, and I was confident that they would be safe. One day, they came home excited about having helped a “homeless man.” All of my days of blowing fire about “talking to strangers” went out the window when my two saw what they believed was a man in need. I gathered them up, and we three made our way back to the store.
I lived in downtown St. Louis, and there were many homeless people who camped out in the mini-parks of the city. There were three of these parks outside the windows of my apartment, and some of the homeless sat in the bus shelter that was near the convenience store I frequented. Stomping up the street with my two children flapping like angry flags from my hands, I passed the bus stop. Lauren said, innocently, “There he is, daddy.”
I had a conversation with the man that embarrassed my children. I told him that he should be ashamed of himself for accepting money from children and that he should memorize my face and their faces and if he should see them again, run.
I worked for a man who told me that he was teaching his daughter to “trust no one.” I told the man that he need not worry: my daughter would always be there to help his. (This was before Lauren was born; I was referring to my eldest, Lisa.) We can only hope that the kindnesses that we deliver to others will imprint on our children. When Lauren and my son Chris were young, their mother and I took them on Thanksgiving to the Wheeler Mission to serve meals to the homeless. We wanted them to understand that the plenty they had was not shared in by many of the people in their world. We wanted them to give back.
This time, this season, is what a friend once called “the season of mercy,” but every season of our lives has opportunities for mercy. Last year I wrote that, at this time, we should “stop looking for reasons to be angry and let (the) holiday season be the vehicle that brings us to joy.” This was before my two gave money to the “bus stop man,” and before Lauren prepared and delivered Thanksgiving meals.
What we say to our children matters less to them than the things they see us do. I know where the love is and I am glad that my daughter saw it delivered, and delivered it in return.