"Compassion" Resolved

So you may remember my posts in June; Compassion, and Compassion Update. They were about Garrett and how he spotted a homeless man and put together quite the little care package.

Today, we had a full, wonderful day- loaded with bloggable stuff. We were almost home after hours of being away and we spotted a man sitting with an "Anything Helps" sign near the entrance to Safeway. We've had the goody bag in the fridge ever since Garrett packed it a month ago, so we zoomed home, G ran into the garage to grab it, and we zoomed back over. Carter was sleeping in the car, so I parked nearby the guy, and The Bigs went out to deliver the goods. They had it all worked out that Garrett would hand off the bag of food/drinks/$$, and Madeline would do the talking. I wanted so badly to take a picture of my sweet kids walking toward the man, but I didn't want to be disrespectful. He saw them coming, and stood up. They exchanged a few words- I couldn't hear them, but Maddy filled me in later. He waved at me, and then sat down in the shade to look through it.

We drove away and the car was quiet. I asked what he said to them, and Maddy said he thanked them and told them they were good people. We prayed for him and us- that he would have God's peace and know Love, and that we would be compassionate and generous in our daily life, not just now and then when it's easy and we aren't in a hurry.

As for the man, I was tempted to drive by and see what he was doing with Garrett's bag that was so packed with care. But I didn't. I hope he knew that my child put his heart into it. I hope it touched his heart in a way that he needed it to. I hope it made him smile, quenched his thirst, lessened his hunger, and helped his cough. (Ha ha. G put a cough drop in, just in case, and that makes me giggle still.) But I don't know. The cynical, grown up side of me says that if I found the closest garbage can, it would be full of Garrett's stuff, minus the 8 quarters. I don't know, I won't know, but you can guess what I choose to believe.

Meanwhile, Garrett made it clear that he'd be putting together another bag o'stuff to keep in the fridge for the next 'poor' person. (Yes, we talked about how you can't really call them that because it isn't very respectful and since we don't know anything about their life we can't really describe it that way. So far, that talk hasn't stuck and we'll keep trying.) Madeline wants to help as well. They were asking about food closets and soup kitchens, so we'll see where this takes us.

I am sure wild about these kids of mine.