I had just dropped off a young lady in Torrance and I was driving back to Los Angeles. I had my radio tuned to 94.7 The Wave and I was enjoying a string of my favorite songs and thinking about the nice conversation I just had with the young lady. As I was coming down the La Cienega hill, I noticed a person in a gray hoodie walking among the cars that had slowed down and stopped for the red light at the bottom of the hill. I thought to myself how dangerous it was for him to be in the street especially since it was dark with only the street lights and the headlights of the cars to break up the darkness. As I coasted closer, I could see that the person was walking past the cars and saying something. No one rolled their windows down and I could not hear what he was saying. The light turned green and the person made his way back to the sidewalk.

I decided to pull over and give him the few dollars that I had put in my door’s side pocket. I keep dollars close so that I can quickly give them out when I see someone who is standing on the street asking for help. I pulled into a vacant parking lot under a street lamp and smiled in his direction as I saw him walk up to my car. It was then that I realized that the person was a young girl. I rolled down the window and to my confusion, she looked me directly in the eye and immediately started to apologize to me, “I am so sorry for bothering you, but….” I looked at the sign she had made and was holding tightly in her hands. “This is my mom and she is in the final stages of cancer. I am not working and I wanted to do something to help her.” I looked into her face and she looked tired, but determined to stand outside in the cold for her mother. I handed her the bills from the pocket in my door, but was overwhelmed with the feeling that it was not enough. She took the bills and said, “Thank you, thank you so much. I really appreciate this.You did not have to do this. Thank you.” I told her that I was glad to do it as I reached for my wallet and handed her more bills.

I felt restricted by my inability to give her more money. I looked closely at her sign that she had carefully made. There were pictures of her mom placed sporadically on the creased, white piece of poster-board. She had written, “Please help my mom” across the top and I could not read the other print that faded under the glare of the street light. The pictures were held in place by pieces of crumbled tape that barely kept the corners down. I was drawn to the one picture of her mother without any hair, she was still smiling. All I could think of was how this young girl must have felt as she carefully laid the pictures down, taped them into place and wrote out her plea for help. I told her that she is a good daughter and to hang in there, not only for her, but for her mom. She smiled and started back to the street to hold up her sign and hope she could reach the hearts of some of the drivers before the light turned green. Driving off, I looked in the rear view mirror and said a prayer for her. She is a lucky girl. Her mom is still here.