Senseless Good Deeds.... and other such nonsense

So I had a most interesting and unusual experience coming back home from class yesterday.  I had stopped for Gas at the King Soopers Gas Station right behind my place on South Golden Rd. when an elderly lady approached me as I was filling up and asked if I might be able to give her a ride down the street.  I wasn't really in a big hurry to get anywhere, other than meetings some friends for coffee at Leela's downtown later, so I agreed and told her to hop in.  She  thanked me and motioned to go around the corner, where she had a small collapsable metal shopping cart, the ones with wheels that see to be popular with the geriatric slightly mentally unstable homeless crowd.  Anyways I helped her load the surprisingly heavy contents of the cart into the back of my truck, and asked her where she wanted to go.  She said she was trying to stay the night a cheap motel at Colfax and I-70, in the opposite direction a few miles from where I was going, but I agreed and we headed that way.  We got to talking and I introduced myself, she said her name was Cathy and kept emphasizing how incredibly weary and tired she was and how grateful she was for the help;  she then talked a bit about how she got in her current situation and it seemed like she was a good, intelligent, educated person who had just fallen on some really bad times.  She mentioned she had a master's in journalism and english and wrote children's books for a living, while she did seem a little bit dissoriented at times; I believed what she told me as she seemed sincere and relatively trustworthy.  She told me she grew up in the Golden area but had lived back on the East Coast for most of her adult life, and recently came to take care of her aging father at a Denver area nursing home/hospice, and after he had passed on a few weeks earlier, had no money left after his heavy medical expenses, and no family or friends to turn to for help.  He car had been stolen last week, and she didn't know where to turn or how to find an apartment.  She said she lived on a modest fixed income, but was unsure how to start looking for an apartment in the area as she had trouble getting around.  As we neared the motel she started to become really upset and shaky and told me she really needed a place to stay but was twenty bucks short of being able to pay for a room for the night.  She asked me if there was any way I could help her out; and at first I lied and said I only had a few dollars on me and I was on a student budget with little money to spare;  while the second part was true, I had just gone to the ATM to get some cash and had forty bucks in my pocket.  After seeing how upset and in need she was, I decided to give her the money.  She seemed really really grateful and made me give her my address so she could pay me back as soon as she got some money in the next few days.  She seemed sincere and I believed her.  She told me she was a Christian and she was praying for a miracle.  I told her I didn't believe in god but believed in being kind to others.  She said she respected that and didn't blame my dislike of organized religion and much of its inherent hypocrisy.  It was pretty funny actually, as she left she went to say "God Bless You" and stopped midsentence and said "sorry.....what I meant is your kindness will be rewarded and best of luck to you in everything."  I smiled nd went on my way.... weighing whether I had been fleeced by a crafty old homeless lady or helped out a good, honest person who just happened to be down and out.  I'm banking on the latter, and regardless I think got twenty bucks worth of feelin good out of the deal so If I don't ever hear from her again, I don't think there will be any good feelings.

"If You want Others to be Happy, Practice Compassion.  If you want to be happy, Practice Compassion."   -The Dalai Lama.