Homeless Pregnant Girl Was Escorted Out of a Store for Not Having Enough Money to Pay for Milk – Story of the Day

So many of us walk past the misery of others without a second glance. Worse yet, some people seem to blame the destitute for their poverty. They must have done something wrong…

One day, a young heavily pregnant woman walked into a small deli. Immediately the other clients were outraged. The woman was obviously homeless. She was wearing dirty ragged clothes and looked starved. But none of the clients felt sorry for her at all.

One of the clients, an elegantly dressed lady in her sixties exclaimed, raising her scented handkerchief to her nose: “Honestly! What next! CAn’t these people go to a soup kitchen or something?”

“Look at that!” said a woman with a toddler, “Can you believe she’s pregnant? These people shouldn’t be allowed to have children!”

A tall man in a business suit sniffed disdainfully: “I’m sure child services will take the child away as soon as it’s born!”

A young boy was standing with his mother in the sweets aisle, and he noticed that the pregnant woman blushed with shame and hunched her shoulders as the other customers aired their views.

The pregnant woman quickly picked out a bottle of the cheapest milk and a discounted loaf of day-old bread. But when she got to the till, the owner of the store rang up her bill: $2,50.

The pregnant woman counted out her change. She turned to the man with tears in her eyes and whispered: “I’m sorry…I only have two dollars…I’m so hungry…”

“Get out!” said the man, “What do you think this is? Charity? OUT! If you come back, I’ll call the police.”

The woman left the milk and the bread on the counter and walked out. The little boy who had been watching everything in silence turned to his mother and said: “Mom, you know how you said I could buy anything I wanted after I got all those As on my report card.”

The world is a hard place, and sometimes a smile or a kind word can change a life.

The woman smiled tenderly at her boy. “Yes, Ryan, anything! What is it you want?”

Ten minutes later, Ryan walked out of the store with a large bag of groceries in his arms, including bread, milk, cheese, fruit and vegetables, and juices. Just a block down from the store he found the pregnant woman sitting on the sidewalk.

Ryan walked up to her. “Hello!” he said smiling. “I hope you won’t mind, but I brought you some things?”

The pregnant woman stared up at Ryan in disbelief. “That’s for me? All of it?”

Ryan nodded. “Yes. My mom says it’s important for pregnant ladies to drink milk, and eat fruit, because of their babies.”

“But…Why? Why are you doing this?”

“My mom raised me like this,” Ryan smiled.

The pregnant woman was weeping, and she cried: “God bless you!”

Ryan’s mother was very proud of her gentle loving son, and how he’d reached out to help the homeless woman, instead of criticizing her the way the others had done.

Five years later Ryan was sitting at a cyber café finishing an assignment when a slim, well-dressed pretty woman with a little girl walked in. When she saw Ryan she stopped dead — then she walked over.

“I have been hoping I’d find you again one day!” she smiled, “And here you are!”

Ryan was surprised. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

The woman sat down, with her little girl beside her. “Five years ago, on the worse day of my life, you showed me that I wasn’t alone in this world.”

Ryan looked at the woman and gasped: “It was YOU!”

The woman nodded. “Yes. I had decided to give up my little girl, but your act of kindness changed my mind about life, about the world. Thank you.”

“But why were you out on the street? What happened.”

The woman shook her head sadly. “I was just 17, and when I told my boyfriend I was pregnant he left me. My mother kicked me out of the house… You were the only person who showed he cared for me. Thank you.”

Ryan hugged the woman. “I’m glad everything worked out for you.”

“I try to give back a little of what you gave me. Your act of kindness saved my life.”

Ryan’s gesture of solidarity cost only a few dollars, but for the woman, it was a matter of life or death, and it ended up changing her life forever.

What can we learn from Ryan’s story?

1. Kindness is the greatest of virtues. It’s easy to point fingers and criticize, but it should be even easier to reach out to the less fortunate with an act of kindness.

2. A gesture can change a life. The world is a hard place, and sometimes a smile or a kind word can change a life.

3. It can happen to anyone. Terrible circumstances can turn our lives upside down from one moment to the next, and leave us destitute. Reach out and help, and maybe someone will help you too.