Random Acts of Kindness

Amy had to run to the grocery store over the weekend to pick up some miscellaneous odds and ends. We had run out of dog food for Sam, and I think we needed milk and some other things.

Anyway, when she returns, she has this strange look on her face.
“The strangest thing just happened to me tonight.”
“Really? What was it?”

And she proceeds to tell me about her shopping trip. While at the store, there was a middle-aged(mid-fifties) couple inside asking for assistance from other shoppers…. apparently in vain. Amy decides to do the right thing(I am very proud!) and help these people out. Apparently, the couple was from out of town and wasn’t familiar with the grocery store – or where to find things. So Amy helped them locate the items they needed and struck up a conversation with them. Once they had found all they were looking for, they continued to walk and talk with Amy until she had finished her shopping as well. So the three of them arrive at the check-out counter together.

Looking into her cart, she realizes that she had many more items than the couple, and insisted that they go ahead of her in line. They thanked her, checked out their items, and hung around talking with her while her items were being processed. When it was time for Amy to pay her bill, the man pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and offered to pay for all of her things! Amy tried to politely decline, but the man insisted! When she told him that he didn’t have to do that, he said that he did, and as they walked together to the parking lot, he explained why…

Apparently, this couple had a son who had recently been killed in Afghanistan while serving our country. The loss was devastating to them and the father was having an especially hard time trying to make sense of it all…
“There is so much cruelty in the world today… I had begun to wonder if our son had died in vain.”
Trying to find the answer, he and his wife packed their vehicle and began searching for acts of kindness. Anything to give him hope of a better future…. Anything to give meaning or substance to his son’s death.

Amy was the very first act of kindness that they had encountered. When she expressed her gratitude for them paying her grocery bill, he expressed it to her in return…. for giving him hope… for being a symbol of why his son had to die. As they were parting ways, the man turned and asked Amy what she did for a living…
“Why, I’m a schoolteacher,” she said.
“That – in itself- gives me even more reason to believe that my son didn’t die for nothing.”

[tags]kindness, parenthood[/tags]

Tags: Amy-and-David, kindness, parenthood