While driving home after an especially difficult day, with far too much “thinking chatter” going on in my head, I slowed to approach a stoplight. I was underneath the expressway planning on making a left turn onto the next part of the freeway, as I sat behind several other idling cars lined up ahead of mine waiting for the light to change. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I was awakened from my busy mind by a movement out of the corner of my eye. A man, who could be described as “scruffy looking,” was standing by my car door. His unkempt long hair that protruded from underneath his hat, complimented a long beard of mostly gray. Besides his face, I noticed that his clothing appeared to be a little dirty, likely in need of a good washing.

Before I had much time to process, the next thing I knew I was rolling down my car window and a huge smile began to form on my face. There was a sparkling twinkle in this man’s eyes that just seemed to open my heart, and as my right hand was reaching into a container of change I keep in the car, I for some unknown reason smiled even wider. The man gently smiled in return and a surge of happiness ran through me that was difficult to describe. All the while looking into each other’s eyes, I dropped a small amount of change into his cup whereupon the man gently raised his hand placing it over his heart and responded with tenderness, “Thank you for your beautiful smile. It’s all in the heart. Everything you need is in the heart.”

Smiles can become a gift from one person to another, either to give or receive, or both. Either way everyone benefits. A smile can brighten someone else’s day, not to mention our own. This type of heart-gift can permanently leave its precious mark, as I discovered on this particular day. While I initially thought that my charity was the gift of focus, this man, in truth, gave me a gift of a much greater magnitude.

I was fortunate enough to have a second encounter with this man several months later. On this occasion, the streetlight was green, and my seventeen-year-old son, having seen this man even before me, had a dollar waiting, ready to offer. “That’s him!” I exclaimed to my son, as I had previously shared with him my experience with this man. My son reached past me to give his change to this man, and the smiles again grew all around out of a wonderful and almost indescribable heart-to-heart connection. Again just as I remembered before, and all the while looking deep into my eyes, the man said, “thank you again for yet another beautiful smile.” Then looking into the eyes of my son, he said, “thank you, I love you.”

As we continued to drive on, my son looked at me with a glowing smile on his face and said, “That was nice. I like him.” As my son had now experienced this man’s wonderful energy too, his heart was also touched in a profound way. The beautiful heart and soul within this man left an indelible mark upon mine that first day we met, and reaffirmed it’s etching even deeper on the second encounter. Yes, the smiles from a panhandler left their mark of soul graffiti upon me.