A Simple Tale of Human Kindness

So let me tell you a story.

It was, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday and just like every other Tuesday or Wednesday during a Filipino Holy Week, everyone was just too busy to get his or her business over with to actually care about what's going on around him or her.

And so it was during this hot summer day that we find my really good friend, along with her personal assistant, driving through one of Manila's busy thoroughfares. And just like everybody else, she was pretty much feeling harrassed with trying to finish all her pre-Lenten businesses and getting each and everything done before the long weekend vacation starts. She could've chosen not to care. She was tired. She needed to make the most of her time. The sun was glaring high up in the sky. The heat was unbearable. Anything else just wasn't her business. But in the end, she chose to care.

It was while driving through that busy road that she drove past a poor, grimy old man (a taong grasa in the vernacular) lying sprawled and passed out on the sidewalk. Like I said, she could've just chosen to keep on driving and minded her own damn business. Who was that man to her anyway? If the other motorists and passers-by didn't pay the man a second glance, why should she?

But I suppose that even with the most jaded urban dweller, there still and will always be a tiny corner of the mind where lies one's innate instinct for wanting to reach out to others - a desire to make right a perceived wrong.

And so she decided to go to the nearest McDonalds to get the poor old man something to eat. On the way there, she also called the local police to get the man some help. She was a little disappointed and maybe also a little angry at how the police replied that they would tell the man to just "go away" so as not to be a disturbance the peace. At the back of her said she was thinking, "Are you serious, that man is close to dying! And instead of getting him some help you'll just tell him to go away? What could a collapsed man possibly do to disturb the peace?"

After getting the food, she and her assistant went back to where the man was. He was still there. They got off the car, tried to talk to the man and coaxed him to eat. But with the heat of the sun and probably several days of not having anything to eat, the man could barely reply nor even be able to take just one sip of the cool, refreshing beverage being offered to him.

The police eventually arrived, saw the state of the man who was bloodied all over for probably having collapsed on the hot pavement, and decided to call some back-up and rescue. Now that the police are there, my friend and my assistant could've just chosen to leave the man's fate to them, couldn't they? But no, they decided to stay until the the rescue team arrived to take the man to the nearest hospital or clinic.

As he was being whisked away, my friend noticed a silver ring on the man's finger. Despite the grime and blood, the ring stood out, untarnished and shining in the glaring hot sun.

As my friend drove away from the scene, she was left wondering: Who was that man? Why did he have that ring? Was once in his life he was married and happy? How did he end up old, dirty and bloodied on the streets?

Life is indeed full of mysteries. And perhaps in this holiest of weeks, when people are made to contemplate the importance of their existence, this tiny incident came to be as a sort of reminder that in the dirtiest of places, a little act of kindness - just like an untarnished silver ring - could still shine out and remind us of the mysteries and the beauty of this so-called life.