A happy story

When my daughter was probably 3 weeks old, my husband and I were out shopping for something at babies "R" Us (BRU). BRU was about a half an hour away because at that time, the nearest one was at Southcenter, and we live in Tacoma, 30 miles south. I was nursing at that time and thus perpetually starving, so we decided to go get some lunch while we were up there. We had heard nice things about Claim Jumpers, from people who worked with Josh, so we decided to eat there. Faith was asleep in her car seat/infant carrier, so we carried her in with us without waking her. She was so tiny back then, not even 6 pounds yet, and all dressed in little pink layette newborn clothes, we put her carseat on the table, because it wouldn't fit on the seat of the booth and there wasn't room to put her on the floor next to the table. She slept for a while and then woke up, but was not too fussy, she just looked around, and maybe nursed a little. As we were sitting at the booth looking at the menu, we asked each other, "What are you getting?" "I don't know...What are you getting?" It wasn't an expensive joint, by any means, but we didn't have much money and it was a rare treat to eat out somewhere that wasn't a fast food or pizza place. We decided to just go ahead and splurge, since it wasn't often that we ate out, and ordered what we wanted. We sat there waiting for our food and taking care of little Faith. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, because I wasn't back to my normal weight yet and none of my clothes fit right, they were all either too big or too small, and I felt very awkward and huge. I thought, "Everyone can see that I have a baby, that is why I'm so fat..." To make myself feel better. I was so wrapped up in my own self and my baby that I didn't notice anyone else in the whole restaurant. Our food came after a short wait, and wow was it huge! Claim Jumpers serves HUMONGOUS dishes. I had a club sandwich that would have fed 4 people. I think Josh had some kind of stew in a sourdough bowl, but it was a whole loaf of sourdough bread. So we laughed about the amount of food set before us and ate(some of) our food. In the middle of our meal, our server came over and said, "Man, you guys are the luckiest people ever!" then he paused and we sat there saying nothing, it was weird. Then I said, "Why?" and he said, "That guy that was sitting there," pointing to another table, "paid for all your food! He said you had the cutest baby he'd ever seen and you looked like such great parents that he wanted to pay for your lunch, so your bill is paid!" We were so surprised that a stranger was so nice, and we tried to figure out who he was, but honestly we couldn't remember anyone even looking over at us, and no one spoke to us. It really made our day. We called our family's and told them about it, and everyone was happy. I bet that man is a really nice man, I wish I could thank him, but he didn't want us to know who he was, that is why he had the server tell us he paid for our lunch after he left.

We are all so able to affect those around us, one 40 dollar gesture made our day, heck, our week really, and more, since I'm still thinking about it to cheer myself up, and the gesture was all the more sweet coming from a stranger, because it was so unexpected and there was no reciprocity expected or desired. I'm going to try to practice more random acts of kindness.