I find it very humiliating. I find myself left depressed and discouraged. I'm incredibly saddened and very irritated at the same time. What the HECK is WRONG with you..
I have two wonderful stories to share and then I will explain why they are humiliating, depressing, aggravating, and very discouraging to me.
Story 1
Back in October my family and I went on a week vacation to the Georgia mountains. We were driving back from a day trip to Helen and coming down a two lane fairly step mountain road when we see a tan can pulled as far off the road as possible. My hubby turns to me and says, "We need to go back". Now you need to know that we had been gone 8 hours, I was car sick and the youngest was screaming her head off, but I knew he was right. We did need to go back. So we did just that. Once we pulled up behind the car, we found a man in his early 70's bent over looking under his car at his tire which had completely blown. He was trying to see how he could jack the car up.
We climbed out from the car leaving the kids inside until we found out what was happening. When we approached he seemed a bit worried at first. I told him we passed by and thought he could use some help so we came back. *making a u-turn on a mountain is not simple by the way* . He seemed to relax a bit when I told him we wanted to help and that I had a jack in the back of my Honda. I went to get it for him and my hubby began to lift up his car. The entire process took a bit over and hour and while we were waiting he began to talk to us. He was married for 40+ years and had a few kids and grand kids. He went to law school but then left his job and went into construction and owned many apartments building in Atlanta. He was retired from actually working on buildings himself but he had a lad of wood in the back of his car that he planned on building a water windmill with. He was so nice and friendly. He shared many stories about his wonderful wife and about how he didn't know how he was going to make it home on the blown tire because he knew he couldn't change it himself. He called us a blessing and asked to go see our kids.
When we got done and loaded everything back up we told him we would follow him to the nearest station to put air in his spare that was flat but at least not blown like his other tire. When we got to the gas station he tried to offer us money for helping him and said his wife would be so grateful. I said no so he went to my husband and when he said no he finally agreed and just shook our hands. Half-way back down the road we hear our kids fighting and when I finally turn around to see why our son had money in his hand. He tells us that grandpa man gave it to him for being good while his mommy and daddy helped fix his car.. Stinky old man slipped us some money anyway. :)
Story 2
Today I was pushing my cart up to a lane at Wal-Mart to check out. My hubby had the toddler and I got inline behind a woman about 60? she turned to me with an angry look and says " My gosh she is just going as slow as possible" she then storms off into another lane. I have no idea what her issue is and honestly this is Wal-Mart I figured it was a slow cashier. When I move my cart up I see a elderly woman in one of those electric carts. She is leaning forward trying her best to get her items upon the counter to check out. I couldn't help but to get angry. Not at the woman in front of me loading her groceries, but at the lady who stormed off angry. I told my hubby to take the cart and I walked up behind the woman. I couldn't help but ask her if she would like some help. She was so grateful and kept thanking me. I put all her groceries up and then began loading bags when I realized she had way to many bags to fit back in that tiny basket on her cart. At this point my hubby has figured out what is happening and he catches my attention saying he will be right back. He returns with a regular cart and tells the woman that he would like to help her load her groceries into her car when I get done loading them in this basket for him to push out. We took about 20 minutes to get her all checked out (I have no idea how all those items fit in her cart to begin with those top baskets on there are very small)
I took our toddler after she paid and my hubby walked her out. I finished checking our items out and headed outside. She was of course parked in the very front because of the handicap she had. So I walked up to them and asked to help load items. She was so funny, she kept telling him to be gentle and asking him to place certain things in her floorboard and in her seats. She just kept thanking us and turned to me saying " You are a blessed lady with such a sweet hubby". I agreed with her and then hubby responds "I'm only sweet because my wife is so kind" She tells us she knows how special that is after being married 43 years to her belated husband. She continued on to tell us she wished he was still here to see their grandchildren because they are so much fun and are about the same age as our toddler.
After I loaded our items in the car I walked back to them and told them I would take the regular cart and my hubby would take back the electric cart so she wouldn't have to. She then tries to give us money. We both tell her no we don't want her money and she tells us the good Lord blesses those who help others and she feels blessed and in return wants to bless us. I finally take her money and we get in our car. We make it up the corner and drive back down the lane and my hubby looks at me and says, "I'm running this money back to her we don't need it". I agree and he pulls the car behind her so she cannot back out. He knocks on her window and tells her we just can't expect her cash. She asked if she offended us and he explains it is not That his wife and him were raised to help others for no other reason then them needing help. She tanks him again and says. "God Bless you little family".
So here is my problem with these stories.
#1 Many people drove past the old man on the road and never thought twice to help him.
#2 That extremely rude lady angry that this woman was taking to long and not offering to help her to make things go faster.
#3 That they both offered us cash.
This is a huge problem for me..............
- when did people stop respecting their elders?
- when did people stop helping people?
- Why is money always the answer,
- when you help someone you shouldn't need a numeric payment. Help people
This is humiliating and not to just me but to the ENTIRE Country... When did we become a country so focused on money that you can't do something without putting a price on it. We SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!!!
The saddening part is how worried that old man was when we pulled up, like he thought we had bad intentions....... WOW!!
The depressing part was how shocked both the man and woman along with the cashier *who thanked me for helping* was that we offered to help and were nice about it......... {nice seriously we were thanked for being nice}
The irritating part is that both those people needed help getting all the way home but because of how the world is now we couldn't offer to follow them home to help because people don't do that anymore due to safety.
I look around today angry at the parents of the world for letting go the moral and standards this country once had. I can't fix the country but I can promise my children WILL be those people who offer help with NO expectations and who will look at that older man or woman and see their grandma and grandpa and maybe even someday their father and I...
All I can hope is that with prayer and knowledge more parents out there get irritated and depressed like I am and decide to make a change and do something about it.
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