Rare acts of kindness

Today while I was at work I saw something that has unfortunately become rare in our world.

A young lady was in my store and upon greeting her, I noticed she was disabled. She had a hard time expressing herself and was slowly looking through racks of clothing for something I couldn't understand. I stood there and talked with her for a few minutes and tried to discover what it was she needed. I was very friendly and sincere, and genuinely wanted to help Gini find what it was she was looking for, but some for reason, I could not get it right.

As I was talking to her, I looked up a few times to see if my coworker could lend some assistance, and I noticed an older lady standing outside the store watching me. When our eyes met she smiled a sympathetic smile and walked proudly through the door. She came over to where Gini and I were standing and simply smiled at her.

I looked at her with confusion. I had no idea what she was doing or what she wanted. After a second, I introduced myself and asked her if she was Gini's mother. "Oh no, dear," was her quick response. "I'm just looking around."

I still didn't understand why she was standing so close to Gini until moments later, after a brief period of silence between my customer and I, when Gini turned to her and started to explain the situation.

The woman was having just as difficult a time as I had been having, but was persistent and decided she'd just go around the store pointing to things and holding up individual items to see if one of them could possibly be it. She told me to "go on and help other customers" and led Gini around the store, section by section. It took the stranger over an hour to finally find what it was Gini had in mind. When she finally had the long red scarf in her hands, an enormous smile crossed her face and she quickly walked up to the counter to pay for the item she had been searching for. The woman just stood there and smiled, and as the total appeared on the screen, helped Gini count out the correct amount of money to purchase the scarf.

The entire time I kept thinking that this woman must have been someone Gini knew, but as the two left the store, the woman put one arm around her, said goodbye, and walked in the opposite direction of her toward the door.

This woman, a stranger who could have walked by, or tried for a minute and given up, stood there with a disabled woman she didn't even know for over an hour. She sacrificed her own time for someone she had just met, and was able to brighten someone's day.

I don't see that very often at work or at school and it brought tears to my eyes as I thought about it on my way home. It's sad that acts of kindness like the one I witnessed today are rare, instead of seen all over every day. Are we all simply too time-crunched to help? Do we just not care? I have no idea who this woman was and neither does Gini, but in one small hour, she managed to bring the focus of several people in that store back to the simple things that really matter.