Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Dinnertime Gift


--by acostastrings, posted Dec 12, 2015
Last minute errands to run before teaching my last college class before Thanksgiving. Break started. I ran into a Panda Express to grab a quick dinner.

There were a few people ahead of me in line - distractedly I was eyeing the dishes to decide what to eat, and the young man ahead of me in line interrupted my thoughts and said, "Please, go ahead of me." I replied, "No, no worries, I'm not in a huge hurry." And he said,
"Please, I'm a little tired so I want to rest against the wall." Then I noticed he had one and a half legs - his right leg from the knee down was missing.

We started to chat about Thanksgiving, college (he was a student at UCLA studying to be a teacher), and various casual topics. Throughout he was very polite, cheerful and balancing perfectly on one leg, no crutches or cane to assist.

I decided to "pay it forward" and treat him to dinner. He was very surprised and gracious in accepting the dinner gift. I am so blessed to have sufficient food, access to food and the ability to eat and prepare anything I desire to eat. It is a blessing to share my sufficiency with others.
1345 Reads

Readers Comments

splain wrote: that was such a good post. we are so fortunate when we have so much. This young man didn't really see that having lost a limb was a problem except he was a little tired. Great attitude and I love how you bought him a meal. Nice share
melnotes wrote: So many gifts to be thankful for :)

Add A Comment

Submit your own
story of Kindness

Search by keyword

Tags

Subscribe to the Kindness Newsletter

143K subscribers

About Us

KindSpring is a place to practice small acts of kindness. For over a decade the KindSpring user community has focused on inner transformation, while collectively changing the world with generosity, gratitude, and trust. The site is 100% volunteer-run and totally non-commercial. It is a shared labor of love.

Other servicespace Projects Include

KindSpring.org is a project of ServiceSpace. BY-NC-ND 4.0