The "Gift" of Presence

The other day at work an older gentleman came in and had a question. After some discussion it turned out that he had paid a bill that belonged to someone else in his community (who has the same name as him). When he came in he was frustrated by the situation. Through conversation I learned that he had paid the bill even though he doesn't subscribe to that particular service. It took some digging for me to fully understand what he was saying as well as what he was asking. When I finally understood the situation I decided to use humor to ease the situation. I jokingly said, "Wow, how nice of you to have paid someone else's bill". This resulted in some banter back and forth, we laughed at the situation and I gave him some options of how to solve his particular problem. We talked some more and then he got up to leave. As he got up he was smiling and I could see that our dialogue had an impact. There were tears welling up in his eyes. 

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