Sometimes It Just Takes Hi

A few weeks ago, I was angrily grocery shopping by myself. With my husband working on Sundays again, I’ve been left with the annoying task of grocery shopping alone again. I’m fine with throwing things in the cart and even unloading them, but bagging my groceries alone (we shop at Aldi), loading the car, and carrying them all in leaves me  a bit cranky at times.

I was at the bagging counter avoiding eye contact with everyone and just trying to hurry up. I noticed a family in line with a boy who had special needs. He was talking animatedly about the pizza he was carrying, his father looking a bit frazzled. I continued bagging my groceries when the family walked by.

All of a sudden, the boy was standing very close to my cart. “Hi, how are you today?” he said, making eye contact. He had a smile that was simply contagious, and he was just so happy to be talking to me.

Despite my anger at household chores and grocery shopping, I couldn’t help but smile. I told him I was fine and asked him how he was. And then he left, skipping out of the store with his family.

It was a major “non-moment.” It wasn’t anything spectacular or big. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for weeks.

Here was this boy who many would look at as “deficient” in some way. They look at him with pity.

But who should be pitied? Who is deficient?

So often in life, we go through our days with our heads down, grumpy thoughts constructing a barrier between us and others around us. How many people do you pass in the store, on the sidewalk, at work? How many of those same people do you ignore?

This boy, however, realized something many of us forget. Connections are the key to life. I’m not saying we should forget about “stranger danger” and go around hugging random people. I’m not even saying we have to awkwardly start conversations with everyone we meet But I do think there was something special about this boy who realized the value of a hi and a smile.

It was just a hi, but it completely changed the way I approached my day. It made me think about my priorities, about how in the scheme of things grocery unpacking wasn’t that bad of a thing. It also made me think about myself and how I interacted with others.

Sometimes it just takes a hi to get through to someone.

Lindsay Detwiler, Voice of Innocence