The most profound act of kindness that I’ve experienced was when my Ex and I helped one individual Man.

It was a cold, cold, winter’s night, it was windy and the night air felt like pins on my face.

My ex and I were on our way to do some grocery shopping at Sprouts.

After purchasing our groceries, I distinctly remember, a man walking into the store. As he walked into the store he turned to the side and yelled somewhat indifferently “Sorry man, I can’t help you, it’s tough times for everybody” he then walked into the store laughing to himself.

As my ex and I walked outside the store we heard a voice saying “Somebody, please help me…”

It sounded desperate

My ex stopped and so did I, when we turned to look we saw a man, probably in his early thirties or late twenties sitting on the concrete his knees up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. Looking at him he was wearing a thin white shirt, a raggedy red Spiderman hoodie, worn out jeans, and he had no shoes. His feet looked callus as if he had been walking bare foot all day. My first thoughts were “He must be freezing”

My ex began to approach him and as we did she gently said “Hey, how can we help? what do you need?”

The man continued to look down and responded “shoes… I need shoes…”

My ex asked gently “ok, what size shoes are you?”

The man responded softly “Size 13…”

She said “Ok” then we proceeded to walk to our car.
We put our groceries in the car and my ex turned to me and asked “what’s the closest store where we can buy shoes?” I looked around and I pointed “Over there, there’s a marshals”

As we walked past the man my ex said “we’ll be right back”
The man continued to look at the ground, he looked dejected.

We went into the Marshals and began searching for shoes we found one pair of size 13 shoes, they were red Nike’s. We then proceeded to purchase, a blanket, a pillow, a pack of socks, water, and some granola.

After we made our purchases we went back to the Sprouts to find the man but he was gone… We looked around for about 5 min and I found him in a corner pocket of the shopping outlet, out of the wind just sitting against the wall trying to keep himself warm.

My ex handed me the bag she had been carrying “Here, go hand this to him” she said

I approached the man, knelt down beside him, and said “Here, these are for you. You said you where size 13 right?”

As I handed the bags over to him

He looked up at me shocked and perplexed “Yeah…” “These are for me?” The look in his eyes where of disbelief

“Yes” I responded positively

As he proceeded to take the shoes out of the bag he said with a shaky voice “They’re red… that’s my favorite color”

“I’m glad then” I responded smiling

He looked at me, then into my eyes, breathed in through his nose and said “Thank you” as those words left his mouth I could see that his eyes were beginning to water up, and he quickly looked back down.

I felt the impact of those words and responded “You’re welcome… and I really hope things get better for you”

Once again he said “thank you” then another time his voice even shakier “Thank you”

As I stood up and began to walk away I could still hear the man repeatedly saying “Thank you” to the open air.

During our drive home that night I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness, that we were able to help that man. I turned to my ex and asked “What made you stop to help him?”

She thought for a moment and responded

“He was asking the universe for help, the universe placed us there to hear him asking for help. Once I knew we had the means and ability to help. We had to follow through. The universe gives back the energy you put into it. If we have the means to help a person along in their journey we should do so. Even if their final destination is the grave, if we can make that journey more comfortable we should.”


-Since that day I've done my best to be more altruistic. I'm sure there are a ton more stories of kind behavior and I would also love to hear them. It's not easy to always be kind but when you've given yourself fully to the experience it really can be transformative.