Happenings that I didn’t see coming on normal days in normal places make me smile. On a Monday morning, we waited our turn in line at the grocery store idly watching the pair in front of us unload their cart onto the checking line. He was a scruffy looking middle-aged guy with a nondescript beard and a ponytail, wearing camouflage that had seen better days. I took the young adult woman with him, dressed in leggings and a long t-shirt, to be his daughter. Who knows whether I got that relationship right!
In the same aisle, across from us at the other checker, a woman pulled up in a wheelchair cart, loaded with what must have been at least a week’s worth of groceries. The young women glanced back and immediately left the man to fend for himself and began putting the woman’s groceries on the counter for her. I was too far back to hear, but their body language spoke clearly. Talk and smiles abounded. The young woman, nodding her head in attention and agreement, paid close attention to this stranger who nattered on the entire time. The pair and the woman paid for their groceries and went their separate ways, unaware that anyone had taken note.
Acts of kindness sometimes get lost in all the negative news and often take us by surprise when we happen upon one. This Monday morning incident gave me new determination to pay attention – to people who need help and to the good deeds that people do as a matter of course expecting nothing in return.