“I have a story for you, Sean,” the email began.

She was a cleaning woman. Two kids. One cat. She was going under, fast. She could not afford this month’s rent. The landlord was already preparing to kick her out.

She was working from can to can’t. Sunup to sundown. Just making ends meet. But the ends weren’t meeting. Her oldest son, 14, was also working to pick up the slack. He bussed tables in a local bar-slash-restaurant.

Each evening, after the woman finished cleaning hotel rooms, she joined her son at the restaurant to wash dishes until 1 a.m.

It was during one such late shift that our story begins.

They had just gotten off work. Mom was tired, dragging with exhaustion. And even though it was past midnight, Mom and son sat on the curb to eat their complimentary to-go suppers.

They balanced the Styrofoam boxes on their laps. And that’s when Mom lost it. The reality of their lives came crashing down on her. Hard.

It was a sudden realization of the heaviness of life. The instant recognition of one’s lower position in the great hierarchy of human suffering. Sometimes it all hits you at once.

Her body was sore. Her hands hurt. Her back ached. Her brain was tired. Her whole being was exhausted from living without sleep. And her family was about to be homeless.

She broke down into tears.

Her son held her. He told her, “Everything will be okay, Mom.”

But what did he know? He was too young to know how life works, she thought. Because the truth was, nothing ever worked out. The truth was, life is an excrement sandwich. Eat it or starve.

And that’s when something happened.

At the edge of the parking lot, a man came walking. He carried a backpack and walking stick. His clothes were rags, his face unshaven. He smelled as though he had not bathed in years.

He approached the two and asked whether they had any food they would be willing to share.

Sadly, the restaurant kitchen was already closed, she explained. But “Here,” she said, “take this,” and she presented him with her supper.

After all, Mom had not touched her food, she wasn’t all that hungry. She gave her to-go box to the man.

So, he joined them on the curb. They ate together in a kind of amiable silence. The man finished eating. There was food in his whiskers, and all over his shirt.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. And there was something in his eyes that seemed to sparkle, Mom recalls.

“I’d like to repay you for your kindness,” he said.

“That’s not necessary,” said Mom.

He insisted. “Promise me that you’ll accept my gift. No matter what it is. Promise me you’ll keep it.”

This was an odd request, but the woman promised inasmuch as she knew how degrading it could feel to accept charity.

The man smiled. He reached into his bag. He removed Russian nesting dolls, brightly painted.

“This is for you,” he said.

When the man left, Mom and son watched him disappear into the night. They crawled into their beat-up car and made their way home. Mom would get maybe four hours of sleep, if she was lucky.

As she drove the empty streets, the boy unstacked the wooden dolls on his lap. When he reached the smallest doll, the boy yelled, “Mom, look!”

When he opened the doll, he found a tight wad of green paper stuffed inside. It was enough for about four months rent.

“I am 71 years old,” the former boy wrote in his email to me. “But I still firmly believe everything will be okay.”