If that is his real name? I don't know, but I choose to believe it is.
I decided I should write about it, I decided a should share this story, a story about saying yes, about choosing to believe in the human truth.
Five days ago, walking to university, a man ran up to me, fear and desperation in his eyes, he abruptly said a few words in a language I couldn't understand, and then a few more that echoed in my head since then: " (Do you speak English?) I am Kashir, I am Indian, my wife is at the hospital giving birth to my second child, I have no way to get there, can you lend me money for the train, I'll repay you, you can send me MBway, I'll repay you, I just need five more euros".
Usually we ignore, we choose to ignore, we remain shut and close our ears, to people who ask for help, but after hearing his request it would weight in conciousness not to help.
I sent him the five euros, and actually saw his MBway app with fourteen euros and fifty three cents the actual price of the ticket to catch the train (I went checking afterwards). When he was leaving, I reached to his arm and gave him an image of Our Lady of Fátima I carried in my wallet, no words changed, he took it, maybe he left it in the nearest trash when I turned my back? Maybe he took it and placed it in his wallet? I don't know, only She knows.
I didn't write this to glorify my act but to actually encourage thought in situations like this, situations in which we choose to ignore having in our hands the power to change someone's life.
The human condition is fragile, in desperate conditions a lie could change everything. Kashir could be lying to me, and the fact is that I confronted my friends afterwards and one of them told me he had had the exact same experience, an Indian man whose wife was in labour needing to catch a train to the same place.
Nothing else crossed my mind, I doubted everything that had happened, I missed that day coffee like my life depended on it, but never letting go of the fact that that coffee might just had given the chance to a man to see his child.
Today I woke up, drank my coffee, and came across a notification with the title: "Kashir - the name is Mary" that made me the day, giving me strenght and desire to share this story.
He teaches us to give, teaches us to blindly trust, in Him and in each other. He provides.
«Happy are those who trust in the Lord, who rely on the Lord. They will be like trees planted by the streams, whose roots reach down to the water. They won't fear drought when it comes; their leaves will remain green. They won't be stressed in the time of drought or fail to bear fruit.» (Jeremiah 17, 7-8)
Kashir was my time of drought, to help and trust him was my reaching out to drink from the streams of hope, my hope in the human condition is now strenghtened and not to share would be letting this story dry
