I can see clearly now

I was walking past a bus stop today, on my way to collecting Mum’s gift pack for tomorrow. Standing there was a man I have seen several times at the supermarket nearby. Usually he is propped up on a stool and making eye contact with people, hoping for donations to support people with vision impairment. In fact, I recognised him from exactly two days ago when I’d swung into Woolworths to buy some food before uni.

Normally you can walk silently past these loose change pocket personifications on your way out of the supermarket, but last Thursday he had engaged me.
‘How’s it going mate?’ he’d said.
‘Yeah not bad’ I’d replied, as an acknowledgement of the question more than an answer. I then kept pace and walked off. I didn’t have anything against supporting blind people - according to my inner monologue - I just show that support in other ways and I didn’t want to donate money to possibly non-approved charities that lacked tax-deductible donation forms.
This had seemed to satisfy me as I didn’t think about it for the rest of the day.

So despite him not being perched on his stool today, I still cringed slightly as I tried to pass the bus stop and heard a familiar ‘How’s it going buddy?’
However this time it was quickly followed by a follow up question: ‘Can you tell me when the next bus is coming?’
I was confused, as the man had been standing by the posted timetable for at least the 30 seconds I had been approaching him.
‘I’m vision impaired’ he concluded.
Oh, it all made sense now; he was passionate about collecting money for vision-impaired people because he too was vision impaired.
After a few moments of interpreting the timetable and relaying the results to him I was able to walk away confident that he knew how long to wait until the next bus.
I knew then that I had been right earlier in considering myself a person who supported the vision impaired in non-financial ways. Thus I felt good about myself.

I feel it necessary to share the lesson I learnt about giving today. You don’t need to be ashamed about ignoring the charity collectors out the front of the supermarket anymore, because he can’t even really see you. He’s just heard the sound of your footsteps.