You never know who you will come in contact with.

As some of you may or may not know, I worked for Wal-Mart for a while. I finally had to quit because it was causing my back to give me a great deal of pain. In that time I worked there I met several people. Some of them I forgot about as soon as they walked away from the counter. Others that I spoke with will remain etched in my memory forever.

One person that comes to mind is a little old lady, I am sorry I never got her name. She came back to the photo lab one day looking as if she needed some help. I came up to her and asked if there was something I could help her with. She presented me with a picture and said she would like to have a copy of it. I glanced at the picture to make sure it was not something that was copyrighted, it was of a teenager sitting in the driver's seat of a car. I sort of wondered to myself the significance of the picture. Not too much time went by and I found out about the teen in the picture.

She began to tell me that the teen in the picture was mentally handicapped. The picture was taken around his birthday. You see being that he was mentally handicapped he could not drive a car. This was something he had always wanted to do. So as a birthday gift one of his friends took him to an empty parking lot and let him drive his car. It really made his birthday special. Not long after the picture was taken the teen passed away from complications due to his illness.

I stood there... I just stood there looking for something to say. I could not assemble the words into a sentence that would have made any sense. The only thing I could mutter was " I am sorry..." It felt so shallow and cookie cutter like that it did not sound right. What does one say in moment like this? Then I gave the picture and the copy back to her. Still not knowing what to say. I looked at her and now she had tears welling up in her eyes. She said to me " you don't understand.. You see, that was my grandson...." I felt a wave of emotion come over me. I wanted to give the lady a hug. I was trying not to show my emotions, I am sure they were apparent on my face. I will never forget her and the look in her eyes.

I can only imagine how Mary must have felt finding out that her son was condemned to die. Then looking up at the cross and seeing her son there. "You don't understand... That's my son.."

Until my next post
~Mike