Two days ago I was woken up at 1 am. My roommate stood at the door (she was returning from a club) along with a huge middle-aged man with long hair. "Please let him in," she told me, "He has been locked out of his apartment." She had seen him, cold and shivering (it had snowed the previous night) and immediately asked him to sleep at our place. He was a law student in his fifties who had been doing his homework at the Laundromat   when he found he had left his keys in his house. I have never had a strange man sleep in my house before. My roommate and I are both less than 5 feet and we have been asked not to speak to strangers since we were kids. Not to mention that we're in a new city that we have lived in for less than a month. He accepted our kindness with hesitation and as soon as dawn broke he left. The next day he came to our house, saying he owed us big time for not being frozen out in the cold. He left us a beautiful card saying--"Thank you so much. Your actions are so sincere." Later he cooked us a wonderful simple "thank you" dinner over which he told us about his life (a coach, a guide, a law student). He told us how he was completely touched by our concern for a total stranger. I learnt a lot that evening. As he talked about how once he brought a homeless man in to eat Christmas dinner with his family, I was deeply touched. My roommate taught me a huge lesson: Let go of your fear; always leave the door of compassion   open and you can never go wrong. What can we learn from the passage?
The writer's roommate worked in a club. The man had helped others before. The man was a complete failure in his life. The two women have lived in this city since they were young.