I almost killed a homeless man with kindness

Once I nearly killed a man by trying to be nice.  

My brother was in an accident and was in a coma in Harborview Hospital in Seattle, WA.  I flew in from Smalltown, Idaho.  I wasn't used to the "Big City Hospital" scene yet.  

One day while in the cafeteria a homeless man was gathering food from the used trays.  I hadn't witnessed anything like that before.  There he was in his dirty clothes and tangled hair calmly sorting through the trays and picking out the things he felt were desirable.  He ate some of those items right there, while other treasured items were placed in his coat pockets.  I looked around and noticed that nobody else seemed to be paying any attention to the situation.  

I am pretty sure that I stopped all movement and paused to watch.  In my defense, I was tired and stressed and out of my element, but I am pretty sure I was standing there mouth open and staring.

The homeless man and I made eye contact for a second before he went back to foraging on the trays.  In that moment I saw and smelled the weary scent of living on the street.  He looked  too tired and too demoralized to care about the humiliating state he found himself in.  

In my mind the problem was that he was hungry and he didn't have enough food, so he was eating what I considered to be garbage.  I hated that for him.

In my view of the situation this was an easy problem to solve, so I reached in my purse and handed him $6.00.  I mumbled something like "Get yourself something to eat." as I handed him my cash.    He made an attempt at a smile as he put the money in his pocket and went straight back to foraging.  

This baffled me, he had money now, no need to continue foraging.

As I snapped out of my trance and headed back to the table where my family was seated.  My Dad felt the need to tease me about giving the man money, he stated that the money would not go to good use and I could create more harm than good.  It was a friendly discussion in a stressful time, and I didn't think that much of it.

UNTIL I got to see the results of my good deed that evening.

Later that night the family left the hospital for the first time in several days to go out to dinner away from the hospital.  I don't recall where or what we ate, but on the ride back to our hotel we witnessed a commotion.

There was an ambulance and a crowd gathered in a small circle near the front steps of the church, on the church steps a man was laying face down near a bottle while others tried to render aid.  We all recognized him at about the same moment.  

My Dad was the first to say anything out loud.  "Oh no", he said, "that is your friend, you damn near killed him".

I had the opportunity to see my good deed in action and my feelings about it are mixed...

I'm a bit older now, and I now realize that with many homeless people there are underlying causes, such as addiction and mental illness and likely both.  Who knows, I assume I didn't actually kill the man and the story didn't end there, maybe he found help, or maybe lived the rest of his life drinking and eating off of hospital trays.  Being realistic, I doubt I had any impact on him at all.  

I often think of him and I do not regret giving him the money.  My motives were good - with the understanding I had of the situation it was an okay thing to do.  In life though we grow up and see things differently and I am always grateful that I got to see with my own eyes how what I thought was helping, might not have been helpful at all.

People often have strong opinions about giving money to homeless people.  I don't have a strong opinion, I understand why people give and I have seen why others do not.

Next time you are faced with this situation do what feels right to you, but don't make up a rosy story about how it all turned out.

@whatsup