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I learned that day we can do much with just a cheerful word or a small act of service.
by Joanne Rutis
y daughter and I decided to make some sock
dolls, so we went to a store to buy some brightly colored yarn
for the dolls' hair. At first we didn't pay much attention to
an elderly woman who was carefully looking through the packages
of yarn until she held up a skein and asked us, "Is this
mauve-colored yarn?"
I answered that it would probably pass for such. I could have let it go at that and kept on looking for my own yarn, but something about the woman made me ask if she was checking to be sure she was getting the same dye-lot number.
If you've worked with yarn, you know you can think you're matching colors correctly, but, if different skeins were dyed in different batches when the yarn was being manufactured, the colors can vary enough to give you an unpleasant surprise once you've completed your project.
The woman knew nothing about dye-lot numbers, so I helped her find them on the packages. We made sure all the dye lots were the same so the colors would match.
Thanking me for my help, she started to leave but came back shortly to apologetically ask if I might know where the scissors were. I directed her to the end of the aisle to a scissors display.
As my daughter and I were about to leave, the woman returned. My simple act had so impressed her that she had to come back to thank me profusely for my kindness. As it turned out she was from a senior citizens' home and had come to purchase yarn for a friend who had just undergone heart bypass surgery.
I reflected on how sad it is that my simple act of courtesy was so out of the ordinary that the woman felt it warranted such gratitude, and then I considered how often I had shown friendship toward strangers. I had to admit that it hadn't been often enough.
Too many of us live in a world in which we don't communicate with those we don't know. We pass each other in stores and don't make eye contact.
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