He would read it just because someone had given it to him, if nothing else. He’d struggle through the small print and tedious scenic descriptions because he wouldn’t want to waste someone’s kind intentions. There was a pleasant pause in our conversation, and he sat rocking in his chair while I flipped through a magazine that was sitting on their crystal dining room table. That table always seemed so impractical to me, but it made my grandmother happy because it sparkled and made my grandfather happy because it made my aunt happy who had bought it for them. My grandfather’s arm shot up (in slow motion) and he shook his finger in the air a few times. “I have something for you baby…” he said. “I thought maybe you’d like to read it. I found my great grandmother’s journal. We were hiding it until her daughter died—she wrote some things about how they didn’t get along…Let me go get it.” I smiled. I smiled because I was genuinely too excited not to smile. “Oh really?” I said as he made his way out of the room. I was excited. I was thrilled, really—to read someone’s deepest thoughts. To find treasures inside written memories or poems or even an old “To-do List.”

And I wondered, why is this so important to me?

Whenever I am at a thrift store, I look through the book section and on the shelves where they sometimes have old photographs and frames and half-used stationary. Because one time I found a girl’s journal. My sister glanced through it and told me I wasn’t allowed to read what it said. She told me, “Put it back, Rach” after I pulled it back off the shelf again. She said the girl talked about sex and stuff. I didn’t care. I just wanted to read what someone had taken the time to write down in a place they knew no one else would see. I wanted that privilege—to be let in. I wanted to read it all and imagine what the person must have been like, and then to wonder how their journal ended up in a thrift store. But first to wonder about what they must have been like.

I under-dog-ear pages in books. I do it so I can go back and read whatever it was that I found so profound. But sometimes I feel self-conscious about who will see what I’ve marked. Sometimes that seems like it could say more about me than my own journal could. Of course, no one even notices things like that. But I do. I watch for what people underline. I had an old Bible that I’d underlined to death. I mean it—my friend told me one time “You may as well underline the whole thing.” That made me mad because I was only underlining what I thought was really important. What I thought was really important just happened to be almost everything….

I wondered one day, “why am I underlining all of this?”

God told me a few months later. Now a homeless man named Joseph who lives on San Julian street in downtown Los Angeles keeps it in his pocket. Now I’m glad I underlined those verses that preachers speak to me over and over again in church and that I knew already from my days in AWANA. Now a man who knew nothing about God has a little path lit up for him. I felt silly underlining John 3:16 because, how could I forget it? But now I don’t. Because Joseph’s eyes will go straight to it.

Maybe I’m not the only one who notices.

I was a young college student living with my ex-boyfriend in the back of a small antique shop when I had my closest encounter with a homeless person.  True, I was about as homeless as I have ever felt in my life given we weren’t supposed to be living in this space meant for our business, but I easily blended in with the rest of the bathed society and chose to identify myself with them.  It was during this time that I became a regular plasma donor.  I received fifteen dollars for my first successful donation and forty-five dollars for the second – potentially a nice supplemental income for a college student.

I took off one evening, upset at my ex-boyfriend, with no intention of returning.  I planned to donate plasma the next day and receive forty-five dollars.  Being anemic, I had to stock up on high protein foods the night before to boost my hermaticrit level.  Without a high enough red blood cell count, they would turn you away instead of risk leaving you without enough energy.  I didn’t have enough money for bus fare much less a can of red beans when I wandered out that night.  I came near a church where someone had set up some blankets for a shelter, but it seemed to be unoccupied.  I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night, so I decided to poke around this shack and hope for a place to lay my head.  I’m not sure how I got to a point where sleeping on some dirty blankets next to a church somewhere in downtown was acceptable, but I didn’t twice about it at the time.

To my surprise, I was invading the privacy of a homeless man lying on a mattress watching t.v. from his battery-operated set.  I don’t remember what he was watching – I don’t even totally remember what he looked like – only that he was probably in his thirties and wore a cap, glasses, and an unshaven beard.  I apologized and intended to move on, but the man insisted that I stay, offering me the spot on his mattress while he slept elsewhere.  Somehow that wasn’t enough for me, and I proceeded to explain my need for a can of beans.  Who would have thought this homeless man had more cash with him than someone as respectable as me, but it wasn’t long after my story that we were walking out of the local food mart with a can of Van de Camp beans that he had purchased for me.  He opened it, of course, with a knife he carried with him.  I was overwhelmed by this man’s kindness and never once felt threatened by him, nor did I ever get the sense that he ever expected anything back from me.  I told myself that I would return the next day with my forty-five dollars and dole out a portion to him.

After a successful plasma donation the next morning (thanks to the can of beans), I headed back to my friend’s shelter, excited to share with him the fruit of his kindness.  To my disappointment, there was no shelter left standing – only the church gardener belting out the loud noise of a hedger.  It was as if the makeshift shelter and the friend I had met there never even existed.  I considered stashing the cash somewhere that he would find it, perhaps in a nearby tree with a note.  But what if he never came back?  And wouldn’t it be pointless if he did, in reality, never exist and that the whole encounter was just a gesture from God to restore my hope?  I’ll never remember what I spent the forty-five dollars in my pocket on, but I can’t help but remember nearly ten years later that kindness can come from the most unexpected people and places.

Deborah Wilson

School is out now and i am starting a new school for a fresh start. still sick and not eating all day i signed up for girls basket ball. What a mistake i was too tired to carry on. i felt bad for my mom and dad i felt like a terrible burden. what parent wouldn’t want there child to be 100% healthy? Well i also got pulled out of that school for the same reasons. That year passed i was home alone all day and it was really getting to me. lots of testing also but no answers. the doctors put me on lots of acid reducers but since i have been taking acid replacers i have been much better.

I am going to start a new school year and make lots of new friends. What i have learned from all this is to really thank god for your health, in one second everything can change. i had never of thought that i would have gotten sick for two years. So remember to enjoy life give lots of hugs and kisses and thank god for your health.

Eve