The encounters of our lives, translated…
Once I was walking down the streets with my son, he was carrying bags, big and small, and still needed to keep two fingers free, to take the ads of people who were handing them out to him on the streets, whether it be real estate ads, gym membership flyers, discounts at the restaurants, he’d, accepted them all. The assortment of flyers, everybody else tried dodging, but my son, he’d, accepted them all, and placed them inside his bag. “Why don’t you just throw them into the recycle bins?”, I’d asked.
My son has his own reasoning, “If the flyers aren’t passed out completely, the workers can’t go home; if I’d tossed them into the recycle bins, and the bosses discovered, it would be bad for the part-time workers, as the bosses may think that they’d thrown it away”. My son told me, he had, worked to pass out the flyers from before, stood there in the cold weather, between the intersections, but the passersby all just waved their hands to him. He’d felt defeated, and so, he must have sympathies toward the workers passing out the flyers now.
My son didn’t find it troublesome, bringing all the flyers home, placed them into the box out front, and after a few days, he’d call the elderly who’d collected recycling materials to come and pick it up, “See, this helped both of them out.” He was very proud of what he did, but I couldn’t help, but shake my head. Other than that, we were often, stopped by the insurance agents on the streets. My son would always keep his patience, hearing them out, then, turn them down. I’d pointed out how he was wasting his time, he’d told me, matter-of-factly, “I’d needed to, at least, allow the salespeople practice their sales pitch!”
Sometimes, when I get a ride with him, I’d see the ads, piled up in his car, and couldn’t help but nagged, and he’d scratched his head and told me, “They were walking in flowing traffic, how can I turn them away?”, his reasons were, justified, and if I’d grilled him on it, then, I’d, be the one without compassion, so, he’d, convinced me.
He had an overflowing sense of compassion, not only toward those handing out flyers, he’d even bought a $100N.T. cluster of ylang ylang from an elderly woman. His explanation: she couldn’t make change.” I’d laughed at him, “You are so easily fooled.” He’d rebutted, and stated, “$100N.T.s for the elderly’s smiles, plus I got the freshness of the flowers in my car, I’d gotten a bargain!” He’d not at all, felt bothered by losing that money from an unexpected expense.
As I was passing Zhongxiao E. Road that day, I saw a young woman with clothes set up on the pavement, screaming aloud, “Cheap clothes!”, but nobody stopped to look. I saw how disappointed she’d squatted by the buildings, I’d backtracked, started looking on the racks, she got up, all of a sudden, told me, “Thanks for being willing to stop and look, I’d called out to the passersby the whole night and nobody stopped, I felt like air, and wanted to cry.” Seeing how cold the weather was, she’d snuffed at her red nose, I was worried that she would start to cry, so I’d grabbed a shirt and had her ring it up for me.
When I got home I’d found that the shirt was, a bit, tight, that it didn’t fit, shoved it into storage right away, well, that was, my good deed for the day. As my son saw, he saw an opportunity, started, making fun, “Maybe the woman was playing the sob card with you, how gullible, who, has THE bleeding heart now?”, I couldn’t find my words right then and there, and found a way, to defend myself, “Don’t you know, that foolishness is, contagious?”
So, this, is the young man, with so much heart, that he’d got out of his way, to spend the time as people start selling things at him, and, it’s his kindness, his compassion for others, that will take him far in life, and, he’d, apparently, got that from his own mom.