Serving Up Random Kindness
Following a morning that included a dentist’s drill, a handful of cell-phone-talking drivers so recklessly rude they made me grit my numbed teeth, and a slow-moving line at post office, I was in a mood to write a column of rants.
This changed when I was in line at the supermarket and a woman with a hand basket of items kindly told a young mother with a full cart, and a fussy baby, to go in front of her. This same woman soon allowed another person to leapfrog her, and then a third who also seemed in a rush.
“I’ve never seen anyone let more than one person go ahead of them,” said the cashier, smiling in admiration.
Thus clouds yielded to sunshine, which brightened further with a few feel-good stories that arrived on my computer screen via links on Twitter, Facebook and The Star’s on-line edition. The latter chronicled more than 500 Cal Lutheran University students who, as part of CLU’s “You Got Served” program, spent a day cleaning up hundreds of pounds of trash nearby Olivas Links Golf Course and Harbor Boulevard in Ventura.
Across the country in a pizza parlor in China Grove, NC, Ashley England and her family “Got Served” a surprise when the dinner bill arrived.
Ashley, in a story reported by North Carolina’s WBTV, explained that her 8-year-old son Riley has special needs resulting from a severe form of epilepsy. His seizures, which number up to 100 per day, began at age 18 months and have robbed his ability to speak. The boy’s frustration at being unable to communicate leads to outbursts, like the one at the pizza parlor.
“He threw the phone and started screaming,” Ashely noted. “The past few weeks have been very hard and trying for us, especially with public outings. Riley was getting loud and hitting the table and I know it was aggravating to some people.”
Before she could calm the storm, a waitress came to the table – not to ask Ashley to take her son outside, but to tell her that another customer had paid her family’s dinner bill and also sent over this note: “God only gives special children to special people.”
The mystery Samaritan’s kindness made Ashley cry.
“To have someone do that small act towards us shows that some people absolutely understand what we are going through and how hard it is to face the public sometimes,” said the grateful mother.
A similar anonymous kindness recently transpired at Tampa International Airport when a traveler had his credit card declined at the check-in counter.
Confused and in a rush to make his flight, and perhaps most of all “extremely embarrassed,” the man stepped out of line to check his credit-card balance.
Upon returning to the counter with the matter hopefully sorted out, he learned that a Good Samaritan had generously paid his baggage fee and left a note reading: “Hey, I heard them say your card was declined. I know how it feels. Your bag fee’s on me. Just pay it forward the next time you get a chance. Have a safe flight. :)”
Here is a third random act of kindness I read about this same day. While vacationing with his family a father was approached by a man trying to sell a flower for money to buy food for his own family, or so he claimed.
Remarkably, generously, and perhaps naively if he thought the money would go for food and not alcohol, the vacationing father gave the man a 100-dollar bill.
“Fifteen minutes later,” the vacationer was quoted in the on-line story, “we see the same guy walking on the sidewalk again. This time, he had at least 10 bags of groceries hanging from his arms, one of which contained diapers.”
Touched by the above examples, I went back to the supermarket and bought a turkey sandwich and Gatorade which I gave to a woman out front who looked down on her luck. I know we are encouraged to donate to worthy charities in order to discourage panhandling, but sometimes you just have to do a “You Got Served” deed right now.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME comes later this month and is available for pre-order at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.