He is sitting on the sidewalk, back up against a wall. Older man. Grey beard. Wrinkled face. Red hoodie, jeans, a soiled cap outstretched in his hands. I drop a Tooonie into his cap. Smile, wish him a good day and move along.

My eldest daughter, Alexis, looks at me surprised. “I thought you don’t give to panhandlers anymore,” she comments.

I sigh. “He looked so sad,” I tell her.

“He did, didn’t he? Look really sad.”

Money won’t help his sadness but I didn’t really care. It was all I had to offer.

Later, my cousin’s daughter, Elise, and I are sitting on a bench in Gastown withe my sister Anne who has joined us after work. We’ve been all over. From the west end we took an Aquabus to Granville Island, wandered around, had lunch and then hopped on another Aquabus over to the bottom of Yaletown. We walked up, took Elise for a tour of Vancouver’s amazing Public Library (one of my favourite places) and then walked over to Gastown where Alexis had a meeting and Anne was meeting up with us.

We are sitting on the bench taking a break from walking all over this oh so walkable city. I see Alexis walking towards us, smile and wave and a woman, broken teeth, dirty hair, tired body stops and thinks I’m calling out to her.

“Excuse me ma’am,” she starts and rolls into her planned script of why she needs money. Need to get to Coquitlam. Hoping to spend the night there. Have stuff there. My belongings. So tired. So…. Please can you help?

Alexis has joined us by then and offers the woman a bus ticket.

The woman looks at me and says, “Can’t you just check to see if you have a Toonie please?” (A Toonie is a $2 coin)

I don’t really want to. I don’t really believe her story, in fact, I want to challenge her to tell the truth and then I’ll give her money.

But I do none of that. I find a Toonie in my wallet and give it to her. I remember a man I used to date who was once an alcoholic with a million dollar cocaine habit. “You gotta give to the junkies,” he used to say. “Not getting their fix could lead them to doing something desperate.”

I know he was right.

I give the woman the Toonie and she continues on her way and for a moment, I feel the heaviness of knowing her next step will be to get high once she gets the money. And then, I say a little prayer for her and me. “Bless her. Forgive me.” Whether giving the money was right or wrong, is not the issue. She is a fellow human being in distress. She does not need my criticism, complaints nor condemnation. Along with my courteousness and consideration, she deserves my compassion.

Handing out a Toonie can only be done with compassion.

As it suggests in the little journal I bought yesterday, “One Good Deed A Day” — Kindness is contagious.

There are   lots of panhandlers in Vancouver. If I shift my perspective from seeing them as annoying, pushy, persistent, and see them through eyes of kindness and compassion, I see the human being, the lost soul, the person struggling to make sense of a life that they never dreamed would be theiir’s — lost, addicted, wandering the streets of one of the most beautiful citiies in the world  unable to see the beauty all around.

When I shift my eyes to look through compassion and kindness, I see, they are no different than me, only the circumstances of their lives are different.  More challenging. More dangerous. Less loving and filled with beauty.  Yet, regardless of the circumstances of ourr lives,  we are  all coonnected.. We must  look out for each other..

And sometimes, all I can do to make a difference is share a Toonie and a smile. A kind word and a gentle heart.  All I  can do is be myself and let  them be who they are  in this moment in time  without  my judgments getting in the way  of our connection.

Namaste.