It was late and I just wanted to be home.
It had been a really long day.
I was frustrated as I neared the front-end of the store to notice only one checkstand open yet again.
My daughter, Tessa, stood beside me and I gave a withering smile and a bit of a sigh.
Too bad we hadn’t gotten in line before the couple in front of us.
We had only 5 things, but their cart was piled fairly high.
It didn’t take long for me to see that the woman must be deaf.
She wildly signed with one hand, and clutched a small wad of money in the other,
while squinting disapprovingly at the growing total on the register.
As her total climbed, she kept gesturing for the cashier to please take things back off.
The bacon, then the juice, then a lot of baby food.
It became clear that she was rearranging to figure the biggest bang for her buck,
and oh, friends, how I’ve been that woman hoping no one gets in the line after you.
My daughter and I stood watching as she signed to the young man she was with.
His eyes darted to mine only briefly, and then went back immediately to his shoes.
The avocados? What about those? What would taking them off do?
I evaluated the things she was getting.
All pretty basic things.
Nothing super fancy.
Just people trying to eat.
I was surprised when I saw the checker start to sign back to her.
How cool to see that kind of inclusive service.
It rescued my opinion of the understaffed store.
For a really long time we stood there, watching this struggle to settle on an amount.
I could tell the young man wished he could be evaporated, or just simply turn and leave,
but then the woman pulled back out a half-crushed box of Cheerios with a bright orange “Clearance” sticker on the side.
Try taking that, she gestured, and he looked like he’d die.
Fifty cents for that box.
Something broke inside me and I could not let it go on.
“I have to do something” I told Tessa, and I stepped to the register with my hand gently raised.
“I’d like to help her,” I told the checker. “I’ll help buy what she needs.
Put everything she pulled out back up on the belt.
Let her pay what she can, and then just add the rest to my things.”
The woman looked around not knowing what was going on.
Perhaps she thought I was stepping up to do some complaining.
Ask what was the hold-up.
The boy signed then to tell her what I was offering, and her eyes filled up fast with tears, and so much relief.
There was a look exchanged then that only happens when a woman steps
into another woman’s shoes,
and those shoes fit and feel familiar
because she has once worn them, too.
She waved her hands “No. No” at me, but my heart was saying yes.
I’ve been that woman in a line before.
I’ve felt hot and embarrassed.
But this was something I could do.
I was extra aware of my daughter by my side.
My one with a heart so naturally generous.
Who am I in her eyes?
I finished paying for the woman’s things and she stood clutching her heart.
She mouthed “Thank you” to me, and I had to choke back crying pretty hard.
This was when she leaned over to me to type a message on her phone to me,
and when she turned the screen around, what I read will always stick with me.
“This has been a very cruel year, but you have been kind.”
Now tears were in my own eyes as I also signed the sign for love.
She walked away and as she cried I noticed my daughter had joined her.
The cashier smiled at me as I finished with my own food.
He told me he’d been teaching himself to sign off of tutorials online just for that very type of thing.
I just stood there thinking about kindness and the way that it flows, and spreads.
In giving it I’d gotten more from that exchange than just some bags of food,
and my daughter got to see the type of thing I hope she will choose one day for herself, too.
As we walked out, the cashier smiled and signed to me while saying the words
“You have a beautiful night.”
“I already have,” I nodded to him, and I left the store.
It’s been a week since that night.
Tonight I stood again in that same dark parking lot loading up groceries for our Thanksgiving meal, and I had a little moment with God there behind my car.
The air was cold.
I could see my breath.
It rose up like a praise.
I thought about all the years when buying that many groceries would have been a strain.
We probably wouldn’t have bought that many pecans, I know that.
Just the most basic things.
The years past like a bunch of raw ingredients for making something that would turn out pretty good.
This year has been hard in many ways,
but other years have been hard differently,
and tonight in a grocery store parking lot alone I looked up into the star-filled sky and felt like I could truly see the circle of it.
Where I’ve been.
Who I want to be.
If we’re lucky we make it through the scant pantry and threadbare days and find ourselves better for where we’ve been.
We can be thankful for even the hard days that refined in us compassion, and empathy.
Our children are watching.
Will they just see us sigh about what inconveniences us,
or will they see how we reach out to help our fellow man?
That woman will serve as a reminder to me not of a time I gave,
But of the time I heard the whisper,
“Kerri, remember that that’s been you.”
Her hands gestured
His hands signed
And together
Our hands form a chain.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
