Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
~Mother Teresa
It was Christmas Eve and we decided to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We got there early, shortly after eight. It was busy, but to our delight there was no wait.
As we looked at our menus, the conversation between the server and two Hispanic men at the table next to us caught our attention.
“We just want to pay,” one of the men said. “Check, please?”
“There is no check. It’s all taken care of.”
“We don’t understand.”
“You don’t owe anything.”
“But we ate. We must pay.”
“Not today. Merry Christmas!”
Apparently, someone had paid their bill. The waiter was having trouble getting the men to understand that, though. He walked away to help another table, leaving them looking uncomfortably at each other.
They spoke in hushed tones in Spanish. They looked around at the other tables. Most of the ones directly around them, like ours, looked back, smiling.
They didn’t smile back. They looked nervous. I wondered what they were thinking. Did they think it was a joke or a setup of some kind?
They had a right to be suspicious. It was a tense time in the world. Donald Trump had just been elected president. Hispanics and Muslims were the target of a lot of derision and hatred.
After several minutes, they got up to leave. They walked out slowly, cautiously. Were they hoping their kind benefactors would reveal themselves so they could thank them? Or were they expecting to get stopped and accused of dining and ditching?
I wiped tears from my eyes, which was the moment our server came to take our order.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I just witnessed a random act of kindness that melted my heart.”
“I know. That was one of my tables that did it.”
“Really? What a very cool thing to witness. Especially on Christmas Eve.”
A short time after we placed our order and were waiting for our food to come, I noticed a man get up and walk in our direction. He’d been seated at a table with a large group of people next to where the Hispanic men had been sitting. He approached an older couple behind us. They were gathering their things to leave.
“Excuse me. Were you the ones who paid for those men?” he asked them.
The man had a thick Southern drawl, wore a trucker hat, and fit my stereotyped view of someone who was not in favor of immigration. The older couple was white and in their seventies.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I judged them both. I doubted an older white couple would’ve noticed the Hispanic men and bothered to pay for their meal. But if they did, I feared this guy in the hat was going to say something nasty about it.
“Yes,” the husband said humbly.
The redneck removed his hat and reached out to shake the man’s hand.
“That was a mighty nice gesture, sir,” he said. “Can I give you a little something toward it?”
“Oh, no, son. That’s nice, but not necessary,” the husband said.
“Save it for another time,” the wife said. “If you ever see a chance and feel so compelled to do something, do it then.”
The man nodded, replaced his cap and went back to his table.
“That was really awesome of you two,” I said as they approached our table.
The wife smiled at me and put a hand on my shoulder.
“There’s been a lot of ugliness in the world lately, hasn’t there? Some people have seen it more than others. We saw a chance to let someone know not everyone is against them.”
She gave my shoulder a little parting squeeze, and then she and her husband left.
Our food came, and a short time afterward a mom and dad and their two small children were seated at the table the Hispanic men had vacated. The family was also Hispanic.
I saw the man in the hat looking at them. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. I knew he was when he stopped the server and motioned toward the family. The server looked, nodded and walked away.
I was pretty sure he’d just arranged to pay for the family’s meal. I grabbed my napkin because the tears had started flowing again.
“Why are you crying now?” my husband asked.
“It’s a Christmas miracle. Or maybe just the Christmas spirit made visible. I’m not sure which. Maybe both. Whatever it is, what a great breakfast this turned out to be.”
Both my tummy and soul were nicely filled up.
~Courtney Lynn Mroch
