Who is giving and who is receiving?

An early morning in January. My husband, our dog, and I are about to take the train up north, to our mountain cabin. Once at the Central Station, I sit on a bench in the main waiting hall with all our luggage while my husband goes out to walk the dog. It has been an unusually cold winter this year, and Stockholm has had a long stretch of temperatures around minus ten degrees and even colder, which has made the waiting hall more frequented by homeless people than usual.

My gaze rests on a row of benches about ten meters in front of me, where five homeless people are sitting. A woman in her sixties, next to her what I assume is her partner. The man is sleeping while sitting, his head hanging forward. They both seem to have a lifelong alcohol addiction.

Next to them sits a young woman with her legs crossed up on the bench and no shoes on, maybe she is a little over twenty. Thin and small like a sparrow, emaciated by drugs. She has a smile on her face, and I can see how she is talking and gesturing, though it is unclear if anyone is listening.

Beside her is a man who looks older than her, perhaps thirty, perhaps an immigrant from the Middle East. In front of him is a man in a wheelchair; I can only see his back. His head is hanging forward, so he is probably asleep as well.

They are completely mismatched, and yet they seem to belong together, like a family. I am sitting close enough to see them clearly, but far enough to observe without making them feel stared at.

When my husband comes back, I suddenly follow an impulse and quickly say that I need to go to the grocery store downstairs before the train leaves. I run down the escalator and into the store. I grab a bunch of bananas and rush to the checkout.

When I return, I go straight to the homeless group and ask if anyone would like a banana. They do. They also take some for those who are sleeping. I ask if they would like coffee as well. Their faces light up.

The immigrant shouts after me that he would like his with milk and sugar as I quickly move toward the café. I pass my husband, who says he is heading to the train so he, at least, doesn’t miss it. I hurry the staff so I can get back in time to hand over the coffee.

As I deliver the coffee I say I have to catch my train now. They call out, cheer, and thank me. The immigrant recites what I assume is a blessing in Arabic. The sparrow forms a heart with her hands, and I respond by shaping my hands into a heart, before once again running down the escalator toward the train.

Shortly after rolling out from the platform, I look out through the train window and feel a warmth throughout my whole body.

A few hours later, as I sit watching the winter landscape passing by outside, a question arises, why? Why did I do this today? What made me buy coffee and bananas for those in need today, and not all the other days? What caused the action?

Slowly, I return to the memory of that morning on the bench, in the waiting hall. My gaze on that small gathering of hopeless people. How I first observed them one by one, and then as a whole. How they seemed to belong together, how they were perfectly imperfect. And in that, there must have been love.

I guess I felt love, as if they were love, as if we were love. I did not feel sorry for them and in that love came the impulse to act, to buy coffee and bananas.
I can’t see that there was ego in my action. I can’t see that I acted with the intent that they, or others would think I am a good person, or so that I would feel good. But I felt good, I enjoyed every second. These beautiful strangers gave me the gift of seeing that I could love them and be part of them. And maybe most important of all, I see that I was not their blessing, they were mine.