When the Heart Stays Open
Im not young anymoreso much has faded, slipped away. But one evening from the early nineties stays sharp in my mind, as if it happened yesterday.
Back then, things were hard in Romania. The revolution had left the country with empty shops, shattered lives, and thousands of betrayed people. Factories shut down, money lost value so fast that your wages might buy something in the morning and barely cover a loaf of bread by evening. People avoided each others eyeseveryone carried their own private grief.
I was studying in Bucharest at the time. For my family, it was a big dealtheir first son sent off to university. My father used to say, «Youll be what we couldnt. Study, or youll spend your life digging dirt like me.» He ploughed collective farm fields; my mother spun and knitted from dawn till dusk so us six kids would have something warm in winter. To them, my education was the familys only hope.
I rented a tiny room from a strict landlady. She didnt care that I had no job or that my parents back in the village were barely scraping by. Rent was due, or I was out. If she kicked me out, that was itno more studies, no more hope.
That evening, I sat in a canteen near my place with a bowl of watery soup and a slice of breadmy dinner, and probably breakfast too. I ate slowly, stretching out time. Then a man stopped beside methin, in a worn-out coat, with tired, sorrowful eyes.
«Spare a bit of bread, lad?» he asked.
I invited him to sit. He ate hungrily, trembling with hunger. Then he looked up.
«You why so glum?»
I told him. Not everythingjust the worst of it. The landlady, the debt, how I might have to leave. But I said it calmly, without complaint.
Then he spoke too. Turned out, hed been a maths teacher. Respected. Taught generations of kids. But in the chaos after the revolution, someone had swindled himforged papers, took his flat, everything hed ever earned. Gone in days. Left him on the street with nothing.
We sat there like two strangers, yet exactly the sameboth lost. He said,
«See, lad I thought life was solid too. Turns out, you can lose it all overnight. But dyou know the worst part? Not the cold or hunger. Its when you shout for helpand everyone walks past.»
I never forgot those words.
A few days later, he found me again. He held out a small bundle.
«Take it. For you. We put it together. Lots like me. Each gave a little. Easier for us to go hungry than watch you lose your future.»
«But how?»
«Someone helped us. Were helping you. Worlds not all bad, eh?»
I unwrapped itmoney. Crumpled, all different, but enough to pay my rent and stay in school.
I cried. Not just for the help, but because it came from a man whod lost everythingfrom people who had nothing themselves. Theyd been stripped bare, yet still found a way to give.
Now, looking back, I think maybe God was testing us both. Mewould I share my last bite? Himcould he lose everything and still choose kindness?
So if you ever meet eyes asking for bread, dont walk past. Maybe right then, someones fateand yoursis being decided.
