Kindness and compassion have always known how to find broken dreams before happiness feels completely out of reach. And when compassion builds that bridge, it doesn’t just heal what was lost. It teaches the heart that hope was never really gone.
1.
I hired a new cleaner. She did a great job. Before leaving, she asked, “Can I take a shower real quick?” Weird, but I said OK. After she left, a pungent odor hit me. It was coming from my bathroom. I went to see what it was and almost called the police. There was a black trash bag sitting on the floor, and it smelled horrible. My paranoid brain immediately thought she had left “something shady” in my house. The bag was slightly open, so I took a peek. It was just dirty clothes and underwear. I didn’t even mind that part. What annoyed me more was realizing she had used my bar soap because it was wet. I mean, who does that?
I tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up. About an hour later, she came back asking for the bag. Before I could even ask about the soap, she handed me a new one and apologized for using mine. That somehow turned into a long conversation. She told me she was homeless and had been trying to survive by taking cleaning jobs while looking for something more stable. She also had a dog to feed. They’d been living in her car for the last 4 months.
After hearing her story, I just couldn’t turn her away. So I told her, “I got you.” I called my aunt, who owns a restaurant, and asked if she could help. Long story short, she works for my aunt now. My aunt also rents small rooms to her staff for very cheap. It’s tiny, but it’s a whole lot better than sleeping in a car. She still does cleaning jobs part-time, and I still hire her sometimes. But you can tell she’s happier now that her life is finally starting to come back together.
2.
I was not having a good day when this happened and that’s probably an understatement. I had just gotten out of a meeting where I was passed over for a promotion I had worked toward for two years and without saying a word to anyone I got in my car and just drove until I ended up in the parking lot of a diner I had never been to before. I sat at the counter staring at the menu without reading it and the woman working set a coffee in front of me without me asking and said, “You look like a coffee person” and I laughed for the first time all day.
She kept saying small funny things about the other customers and by the time I left I had eaten a full meal I didn’t remember ordering and felt like an actual person again. I left 40$ on a 12$ bill and she came to the door holding it up with a questioning look and I just waved and kept driving.