View this post on Instagram

 

With so much daily stress, it’s easy to overlook the small things.

Last week, I was at the checkout on the naval base with a few things in my hands. When I got to the register, I realized I had never activated my brand-new credit card. So typical of me, especially when I’m busy. I asked the cashier to set my things aside for a minute, then I stepped out of line and pulled out my phone. I quickly found the card’s website and got to work, following the steps for a couple of minutes. As I looked down, my eyes were glued to the screen; I wasn’t aware of my surroundings. That’s how many of my days go, if I’m honest.

We fill every little pause by looking at a screen, and the rest of the room just goes quiet. When the card finally got activated, I put the phone in my purse and stepped up to pay. The cashier stopped me. She said it was already taken care of. The person behind me in line had covered it. She said it was a pilot. It took me a second. I had not noticed anybody behind me.

When I turned around to thank them, nobody was there. They were already out the door with their bags. I never saw their face. I looked at the doors anyway, as if that would help, but it was too late. How do you thank somebody you have never seen? So I gathered up my things and walked out, carrying what a stranger had paid for. I felt a mix of frustration and gratitude all in the same breath. It was a weird feeling, a good one, but still weird.

These days, it feels like we are always rushing, half paying attention, half thinking about what is next. We reach for our phones for work, to check a message, or just out of habit. Waiting at a red light or standing in line, the second our hands are empty, that little glow from our phones pulls us right out of wherever we are.

We slide past the cashier at the grocery store, past the person ahead of us, past the person behind, barely noticing any of them. I do it too.

That morning, I was doing it: head down on my phone, off to the side, missing everything around me. The one second somebody paid attention to me, I was not paying attention to anything at all.

But the person behind me was not doing it. While I was lost in my phone, they watched me step aside, and they paid for my things along with their own. No speech, no waiting around for a thank you. They just did it and left.

That is the part I keep going back to. It was not about the money. It was that somebody actually looked, saw what was going on, and decided to do something instead of nothing. Most people, me included, would have stayed in their own heads and let the line move. For them, it was small, a few dollars and a few seconds. For me, it turned into this.

The part of this story that will stay with me isn’t just the kindness, but the fact that somebody was paying enough attention to see it was needed. Somebody had to look up while I was looking down. Somebody had to decide a stranger was worth the trouble. I keep turning it over in my mind what it would take to look up at the right second and step into somebody else’s day. I want to be that person. I don’t want to miss my turn when it comes.

For the past few days, I have gone back and forth on who the person who helped me might be. Perhaps it was someone in a rush who figured they had a second to spare. Or somebody having a rough week, wanting one good thing in it. It could be they once got the same gift and never forgot it. Or perhaps it was nothing to them, just something they do without thinking.

I will never know. No name, no face, no idea where they went when they walked out. That is part of why it sticks. It showed up with no return address.

~

You might like this one too: