I might even cry while typing this up.When I was around 7 or 8, my family and I took a trip to New York. I think we were in Manhattan at the time but, then again, all places with skyscrapers look the same to a little child so it could've very well been a different borough.It was pretty late at night and we were trying to return to a hotel. I remember it was my mom at the front with my older brother and younger siblings and my dad was at the back with me, holding my hand so I wouldn't get lost in the crowd of people flowing in towards us.Well, we passed many homeless people. When I say many, I mean MANY. They were all lined up along the sidewalks and were either sitting there and begging with the few personal belongings they had or were sleeping underneath some battered jackets or makeshift cardboard blankets.I really felt bad for all of them. Ever since I was a kid, I always had this strange idea that my life was not my own to live, and that my only purpose of existing was to help others, so whatever I had that I could give, I gave. Nobody ever told me this and neither was it taught to me by my parents. That's just how I was for as long as I could remember.We eventually ended up passing this one particular man. He was bald and looked a little old, but what caught my attention was the fact that he was in a wheelchair and both of his legs were missing. In one hand, he held out a hat—a fedora, I think—and kept repeating, "Could someone please help me out? Could someone please help me out? Could someone please help me out?"I just remember stopping in my tracks and tugging at my dad's hand until he stopped walking. I turned around, looked at the man in the wheelchair, and said, "Daddy, can we give him something? Anything? Even if it's just ten dollars?"But my dad shook his head and shoved me along, saying something along the lines of "No, just ignore him" or "Forget about him."And I felt so angry. At first, I was angry with my dad. How could he be so heartless? This poor man had no legs and he wouldn't even give him so much as a penny. But then, after noticing how devastated I was, my dad added something like "If we stopped to give to every homeless person we saw some money, then we'd be broke too."That at least I understood. So after getting angry with him, I started getting angry with myself. That same day, we had just come back from Liberty Island, and as we got off the ferry, I asked my parents if we could buy some things at the gift shop. And we did. My little brother got a toy police car, my sister got a toy taxi, my older brother got some NYC shirts and a miniature Statue of Liberty, and I got a giant stuffed dog that wore a shirt reading "I Love NYC" (I still have it).And after recalling all of that, I started to cry. I wished that I didn't ask to go to the gift shop that day. Then perhaps my parents would've used the money they spent on me to give to the poor man instead. I also began wishing I had brought my own money: a collection of birthday money, Christmas money, random money sent from my grandparents overseas, and allowance money. Because if I had, I would've given it all to him.It's been nine years since then and not a day goes by where I'm not thinking about that man. I always pray for him and hope that, wherever he is, he is doing a lot better than how I remembered him. But the sound of his tired, desperate voice always echoes in my head whenever I remember him: "Could someone please help me out? Could someone please help me out? Could someone please help me out?" via /r/offmychest https://ift.tt/3niuCg4
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