{"id":33687,"date":"2012-09-24T19:24:26","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T19:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/09\/24\/ive-decided-im-not-such-a-lost-person-after-all\/"},"modified":"2012-09-24T19:24:26","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T19:24:26","slug":"ive-decided-im-not-such-a-lost-person-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/09\/24\/ive-decided-im-not-such-a-lost-person-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve decided I’m not such a lost person after all."},"content":{"rendered":"

hiddlessiren<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I honestly try to do what I think will help others, make their day, or let them know they\u2019re loved.<\/p>\n

Thursday night (before I left town) I was working at the grocery store. An obviously frazzled mother comes through my checkout lane with a small toddler. Her card bounces and she looked absolutely heartbroken. My manager was apologetic and offered to put the foods back, but I cut them both off and swiped my own debit card. I thought she was going to break down and cry. It never even crossed my mind not to do it. Before my manager mad even finished I asked the woman to hit the green button, and they just looked at me. I didn\u2019t say anything else, just repeated, press the green button for credit for me. I loaded her groceries into the cart and wished her a good night. The child just waved at me and the mother was at a loss for words, she just said thank you. Poor woman. I hope she and the kid are doing alright today. They didn\u2019t buy much. But it wasn\u2019t like she bought cheetos and junk food. It was all vegetables and a few packs of diapers and wipes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand why everyone behind her in line looked like I had done some great thing. I didn\u2019t cure cancer, turn water to wine, perform a magic trick. I bought a mother groceries. It breaks my heart that it seemed like I performed a miracle. It\u2019s just money. I can\u2019t take it with me when I go. It can\u2019t buy happiness. It can\u2019t buy love. Money doesn\u2019t dictate who we are inside. We choose what to do with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seeing that woman truly happy and grateful was worth way more than a trip to the movies or going out to dinner. I like knowing that for at least a few more days her and her family can eat, and that the child has diapers to wear. I don\u2019t see how anyone else could have done differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m posting this. I guess it\u2019s been bothering me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

hiddlessiren: I honestly try to do what I think will help others, make their day, or let them know they\u2019re loved. Thursday night (before I left town) I was working at the grocery store. An obviously frazzled mother comes through my checkout lane with a small toddler. Her card bounces and she looked absolutely heartbroken. … Continue reading I’ve decided I’m not such a lost person after all.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33687"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}