Saturday, December 20

Sappy post ahead

I had a deep moment at Walmart of all places today. I was waiting in a line up that I thought would never end, and as I usually do, I was people watching. There was a couple in front of me with a cart full of toilet paper and new pillows gazing at each other lovingly...just happy to be in each other's company. It occurred to me that they had been married for quite some time. They spoke with their eyes and soft gestures to one another. Each knew what the other had to say without speaking. This tall, well dressed gentleman looked at one of the shelves at the cash and noticed the display of chocolate was all in disarray, and started to "face"the shelves, making each little box of chocolate look perfect, stacking them up neatly and dispensing of the empty display boxes so that shoppers didn't have to wade through the mess. Perhaps he was bored, but to me this touched my heart and I'm not sure why it affected me so much. His wife looked at him lovingly and he put his hand on her back and gently rubbed her shoulders. I felt tears welling up when I saw this. I wanted to tap this woman on the shoulder and tell her how very lucky she was to be married to such a man, although I'm sure she already knew this by the look on her face. Such a simple gesture, I thought, and it was quite obvious he has probably never worked at job such as Walmart in his life, but he felt the need to "help out" 30 seconds of his time to arrange that shelf, but probably saved a poor kid from having to wade through the hordes of people that night, to tidy it up at his boss' request. This to me is the spirit of the holidays. Random selfless acts, no matter how small, that add up to make this world a better place.
This man inspired me to want to be a better person. Walk through life and make things better, no matter how small a gesture.

2 comments:

Karen said...

That is just the most adorable story I ever heard. I do love the way you tell it too, viewing it as so much more than just boxes of chocolates. I had to say something to you because I was just telling my mother today how we rarely take the time to apreciate the most valuable things around us, like happy kids or a good piece of chocolate :-D.

It's so lovely that you could stop and see something beautiful instead of over-looking or assuming oh-um bad stuff. Feels good, doesn't it

Alexandra said...

Thank U for the pattern =)
Actually I was going to finish a shawl this weekend, but this captured my eyes and my brain is only thinking about the one skein with Manos Wool Classica in my stash ;)