Encounter on Christmas Eve

One particular Christmas Eve I had been asked to go into work for a couple of hours.I had recieved two firm offers of a ride to work but for some reason had just felt like I needed to walk the 7 blocks to work.It was a rather cold and snowy that night. On my way into work as I was walking down the street I had a rather unusual encounter. I suddenly heard the voice of a young man in the distance behind me…I heard him say, “Hey buddy are you homeless?” He then bent over and pulled an object out from his back pack and handed it to the man.“I didn’t realize there were so many homeless here."I heard him say.About a moment later the same voice came calling to me out of the darkness ,” Mam are your homeless?”I told him no that I was on my way to work…He started talking to me and introduced himself to me. Once he found out that I was on my way to work he offered to escort me there because of the lateness of the hour and then he began to tell me that about his life…He had just recently became homeless himself for a brief time. While he was talking I noticed that rather large backpack on his back again…He said that he had came back home and now had a good job and a decent apartment. For which he was very thankful .He told me that this brush with homelessness had so affected him and that he had went out and bought a bunch of presents (the reason for the backpack) and had that night been walking around seeking out the homeless and passing out presents to them, ergo the reason for his question to me…He escorted me all the way to work as promised and then as he was leaving he told me he had spoken to a homeless man earlier that evening and decided to go back and find him and offer him a warm place to sleep for the night …With that off he went disappearing into the darkness of that the snowy night on his mission of mercy . Think of the treasure I would have missed if I had accepted one of those rides to work on that night...