My 12-year-old niece was staying with us for a couple of days. She was remembering some acts of kindness we did together when she was less than five years old. We talked about how so much had changed, and with pandemic, how difficult it would be to do so many of those things, especially when it comes to strangers.
The next day, saying goodbye to my husband, I needed something from the downtown area and happened to take her with me. As we walked around on the street, we heard a beautiful male voice singing a very soulful song. We turned around to see a middle-aged man sitting on a street corner with his guitar. A couple were sitting on a bench nearby and listening to his music.
After getting a few things done, we happened to sit at an outdoor dining restaurant across from him on the other side of the street. My niece was learning how to sing herself, and she kept smiling and saying how wonderful his singing was. Seeing how moved she was by his music, at the end of our meal, I gave her a ten-dollar bill and asked her to walk across the street and put it in his bowl.
She was a little surprised. "Really?" she asked with bright eyes. I nodded. So she headed over and as she approached, the man was just finishing a song and started talking to her, and they ended up having a sweet conversation. She told him how touched she was by his music, and he ended up telling her that she made his day. As she was excitedly repeating the conversation back to me, she mentioned, "He didn't even know how much it was. He was just thankful that someone was enjoying his music."
