Dear Kind People Of The World

Did you miss me after midnight last night?!?!?  Oh I was up, but taking care of a sick child this time around.  Amon rocked a crazy high fever, shakes, trouble walking, rapid breathing, the works.  I’m not usually a worrier mom when it comes to health stuff…in fact, I’m usually the mom who calls after it’s too late to even do anything, but when my heart kiddo did the whole rapid breathing accompanied by a slew of other symptoms I semi-freaked out momentarily, but then gained my composure and we snuggled the night away and Tylenoled up.  We headed to the doctor early this morning and super pleased with a bunch of negative tests and instructions to keep the meds up and watch his breathing.  I’ll take it.

I’ll say this week has been a tad taxing.  I’m pretty wiped out and straight up tired.  Many nights of 2-3 hours sleep, multiple sick kids and just keeping up with life in general.  It’s been a beautiful week too…bright spots everywhere, but today I was really feeling the exhaustion and emotion.

Amon and I ran into Kroger after his doctors appointment to grab a few quick things.  Two guys from the bank inside Kroger stopped us and asked if I was pleased with my current bank.  I gave a confident yes.  They asked why and I responded with “My mom works there.”  And I instantly was taken back.  She used to work there.  Not anymore.  I know this.  I know this well, but for some reason in this strange little moment I forgot and was instantly upon the words leaving my mouth unpleasantly reminded that is not true.  I wrapped the conversation up asap…sick kid, just came from the doctor, peace out dudes.  And off I went tears starting to well.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?????

We had just a few things so we hopped in the fast 1-15 items line and talked with our usual favorite Kroger employees who love us well.  And this sweet lady behind me was chatting Amon up.  He was quiet and reserved, but perked up when she showed him a bag of M&Ms and asked if he liked them?  “I eat dat” he responded.  I filled in, prompted and translated for him while we checked out.  As we walked off with our cart the lady behind me said, “Will you wait just one second?”  I smiled and said sure.  And then she reached out and handed Amon a bag of M&Ms she just purchased for him.  We said many thank yous and I tried to convey how grateful I was for her kindness.  Then I walked to our car, loaded Amon and our bags and cried in the front seat.

Dear kind people of the world…you are making a difference.  Please don’t let anyone detour you or inhibit you or discourage you.  Don’t let anyone ever convince you your kindness will not or cannot change the world.  You are changing people’s days.  You are bright spots.  You are providing light and love in this dark world.  Your kindness may be big and it may be small, but either way IT IS KINDNESS and KINDNESS MATTERS.

I don’t want to ever believe any different.  I don’t ever want to convince myself it won’t matter.  Maybe she saw something in my exhausted posture or in the dark circles under my eyes or my unwashed hair or in Amon’s tear stained cheeks, snotty nose or that he was still in his pajamas at lunch time, but whatever she saw it caused her to choose kindness in the form of a bag of M&Ms and it changed my day.  It reminded me of how we are all in this together and we should remember to rally around each other.  We should do the little things, the big things and all the things in between to convey to others they matter and they are loved and they are in our thoughts and on our hearts.

$1.49.  A small gesture of love that spoke a 1000 “I see you” and “You matter” to this tired momma and her sick littlest.  May we all choose kindness.  May we all choose to expose the love and care God has created each of us to give and give abundantly to one another.

To the sweet M&M lady:  You will probably never know, but you drastically changed the course of our day and encouraged our hearts.  And we are crazy thankful  you chose kindness.

Happy Thursday.