Stories of Kindness from Around the World

I am hearing impaired and I wear a hearing aid.  A few weeks ago, I was in a store and a small child child saw me and yelled out, "Mama, look at the deaf lady!"  I did not know what to say and his mother was very angry.  She looked at him and said "Wait until your father gets home."
Her words were the exact words that my mother used to
say to me and the boys when we upset her.  Memories of my strict father came flooding back to me, and I thought to myself, "What should I do?" 

The little boy started to cry and I felt his pain.  I tapped him on then shoulder and I asked him to hold his hand out.  I placed my hearing aid in his hand, and he asked "Why are you deaf?"  I told him that I was in a terrible accident and which left me hearing impaired.  He held the hearing aid in his hand for least 5 minutes and showed it to his mother.  She did not know what to say.  He gave it back to me and said "You're a nice white lady."  This remark did not go over well and his mother became increasingly
upset.  Then, his mother spoke to me, "You must forgive my son.  My husband is in Iraq.  I do not know where he is right now and we haven't heard from him in months.  We just get the news.  I do not know what do anymore.  He is quite a handful." Then she started to cry. 

I said, "Let's have coffee and all of us can talk.  I can tell that your son misses him." While having coffee, she told me that the only way her son would listen to her is if she told him that his dad would be coming home. 

I told her about some helpful internet support groups of other individuals with family in Iraq, and informed her that she could take advantage of the free computers and internet access at the local library.  Three months later, she left a message on my voicemail and thanked me for that day.  She told me that her husband was still in Iraq, but her son is considering doing a science project on hearing aids and had made his classmates very conscious of keeping the music at a low level! 

I wish both of them well.