From a Wal-Mart parking lot

Jennah Rose English-Welch

This past Tuesday I turned 22. It was a super incredible birthday—hands-down the best birthday ever. Calls and texts and e-mails and Facebook messages began at 12:01 a.m. and didn’t stop until 11:59 p.m.. I shared a lunch with the ladies from my Sunday school class. I called my little brother to wish him a happy birthday (13 years to the day apart), and I spent the afternoon celebrating for the first time as a “forever family” with my adopted parents (which is a story in and of itself).

But something happened that really stood out, and it remained with me every since. If I remember this birthday for nothing else, I’ll remember it for this. I stopped by Wal-Mart to run a quick errand, and as I was walking out of the store my phone rang. My adopted dad, as is his typical fashion, was on a “super-secret” mission he wanted me to know about, but didn’t want me to know about. In so many ways I am so much like him—when it comes to presents and surprises I am giving to the people I love, it’s difficult for me to keep my mouth shut.

I knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing without him saying hardly anything. “It’d be super interesting if you were going to Sam’s to buy me flowers,” I said with a knowing grin. “Now why would you say that?” he replied.

“Because I just bought Dana (the adopted mom) flowers…for my birthday,” I said. As  I  pulled my keys from my pocket, and half-heartedly listening to his chuckles I heard a woman speaking to me from across the aisle.

“Happy Birthday!” she said excitedly.

I expected to see someone I knew. There she was, grocery bag suspended in mid-air, her entire task halted as she looked up at me with the kindest eyes and the sweetest, most sincere smile.

I had never seen the woman in my entire life. I wasn’t even paying attention to my dad anymore. My heart was completely focused on this little, white-haired lady with the kind eyes and sweet smile.

As cliché as it might sound, a warmth settled on me and I forced all the gratitude I could in my returned smile and hearty “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

It had been, honestly, a bittersweet day. The good parts were beyond incredible, but the upsetting parts were difficult.
I experienced a lot of necessary, but difficult changes in my life the past few weeks including the dynamics of my friends and family.

What that lady did for me was so very, very simple—but so very, very touching.  She didn’t have to say a word. She didn’t have to acknowledge me at all. After all, she didn’t know me, still doesn’t know me, and probably never will know me.

But she did it anyway. She made a birthday that had started with tears, end with laughter. On any given day we come into contact with hundreds of people — hundreds of people with their own stories, their own struggles, their own “birthdays.”

How often, though, does that contact cross over into real communication? Are we so busy we can’t even make eye-contact, let alone smile, at someone as they walk by? I know I am guilty of not doing this — so focused and so “in my comfort zone” that I very rarely take the time to acknowledge anyone on any given day. But in failing to do so, I fail to take the opportunity to potentially make someone’s day worth the effort of getting out of bed.

It all sounds so simple, and maybe even a little childish, but I wonder what kind of a difference it would make not only in the lives of others, but in our own worlds if we were all a little more like the Wal-Mart Lady.  I know it made a difference to me.
~JennahRose Shakespeare English.~