It’s common knowledge that if you give money to bums they’ll spend it on alcohol or rob you for more. So when passing the poor on the street, keep your chin up and don’t be swayed.

That’s exactly what I did when a man found me outside a coffee shop and asked for spare change; I refused, afraid that he’d take me for all I was worth if he knew I had any money at all.

Besides, there was a man a few yards behind him, also asking, and he’d want something too. I can’t support all the poor, can I?

But as the man I refused walked away, I turned to see that other people had given money to the second man. He walked into the coffee shop, bought a cup of coffee, and dropped his change in the tip jar. My jaw hit the ground.

In the same instant that I imagined the stupidity in asking for money only to waste it away in a tip jar, I thought of the keen understanding that man must’ve had for others’ needs outside his small world.

All he wanted was a hot cup of coffee and a few minutes out of the cold. When he got what he wanted, he didn’t think twice about tipping the worker behind the counter.

It was as if he was a carrier of some great thing to be passed on from one person to the next, until everyone had a piece of it. So when he came outside I spoke with him.

His name is Richard, and I was sorry to find out that he, like too many other homeless men in the city, had been a war veteran and had children. They had all grown up now and apparently all but forgotten him. I wondered how he could’ve ended up like this if he had ever had a family at all.

I’m sure he had made some bad decisions, but how unforgivable could they have been to drive his family away?

I gave him all the money I had (which was only a couple bucks) and nearly gave him my coat when I saw how little he wanted but how much he needed.

I gave him the information to a local food shelter where he could stay and be taken care of the best way possible as soon as possible.

About a week later I was in another coffee shop when he came in. The place was packed, and all eyes cast cold accusing glares as he came in and sat down in the only available seat.

I put down my laptop and tossed aside my fancy backpack and ran over to him, calling his name.

I wanted to see how he’d spent the last week, if he’d gotten in touch with the organization I’d mentioned, and if he was faring well.

Jaws dropped all over the room; here was an obvious vagabond trespassing on our middle-class property, interrupting our comfortable sips of double Hazelnut espresso, and he dares to sit down and expect to stay for free?

He asked me for just enough money for a cup of coffee. My boyfriend, who’d heard all about my meeting with Richard, was so impressed by him that he paid for it — a large regular — so that Richard could sit and enjoy a warm drink out of the cold.

And I was glad that the same thing that caused people on the street to give to the poor without question, the same thing that caused Richard to tip his coffee maker, the same thing that caused me to remember him forever, caused my boyfriend to insist on buying him a large regular, so he could relax and feel all right for a while.