A sweet waitress covered the cost of an old guy’s coffee. Little did she know what was about to go down…

She looked around the cafe, every seat filled, the air thick with comfort. Years ago, she began, I paid for someone’s coffee. I didn’t know who he was, I just saw someone being made small, and I couldn’t look away.

She paused.

That cup cost me five dollars, but what it gave me was a new way to see the world, some nodded, others wiped their eyes. I thought I was helping a man who was lost, she said, but it turns out, he helped me find the version of myself I didn’t know I was allowed to become.

She set the cup down. This cafe isn’t about selling coffee, it’s about presence, about showing up when no one else does. Her voice grew softer.

A man once told me, kindness doesn’t need to be remembered, it only needs to be continued, she smiled.

So, that’s what we’re doing here, one cup at a time, and almost as an afterthought, she added, some loves don’t need romance, some lives change with nothing more than a kind gesture and the courage to mean it.

The room applauded, a saxophone began to play, and somewhere in the back a first cup was poured, for someone who didn’t know they needed it until they did, and so it began, again.