Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Random Act of Kindness

I have always had faith in humanity and that there are people out there who want to make a difference in our world. People who want to spread kindness as if it is a contagious disease. Although, these folks are a rare breed, they do exist. In fact, I had a memorable encounter with such a person yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my boys to the bank to cash in our coins, for our up coming road trip to Fl. While were were standing at the Penny Arcade, giggling at the machine munching away at our coins, a woman walks up to us and says, "looks like you all are having some fun. What is this thing? I've never seen such a machine."

So I quickly explain that it's a Penny Arcade, basically a machine that counts your change. While I am telling this woman about the machine, my boys are still emptying their jug and and cheering as the machine devours their savings.

The woman still amazed, I'm not quite sure if she was more taken with my boys excitement, or the wonder of this magnificent machine. She asked my boys, "Did you save all those coins for something special?"

And the Destroyer quickly replied, "Yes, Disney World!"
The General followed up with, "Yeah, we saved our money for a whole year!"

We finally finshed feeding the coin machine and it spit out a ticket for us to go and claim our cash. The woman wished us a fun trip then continued on to the teller infront of us.

The boys waited as patiently has they could while the woman fished up her business. When she was done she turned to us and said, "it's so nice to see a young family so excited about saving their money. Here I want your boys to have this." And she handed me several crisp bills.

Stunned, I said, "Wow, this is really kind of you. But, I can't take your money. You don't even know us."

The kind woman insisted, "Please, take it for your boys. I don't have grandchildren of my own and it would give me great pleasure if you let me do this for your children."

There I stood speechless; utterly taken aback by this woman's generousity. When then General stepped forward and said, "Thank you."

"Yes, thank you!" I said. "I can't believe this, Wow...Thank you!"

"Have a good time with your family," her kind words touched me as deelpy as her random act of kindness.

As she departed our prensence she left behind an aura of warmth that left a lasting impression on our hearts.