Yesterday I had an experience that I want to remember. It's one that I have learned a lot from and maybe some of you can learn from my mistakes.
I was at Costco eating some lunch with my kids. We were in line buying our food when a lady and her son came and stood in the line next to ours. I looked at her and then her son and then quickly looked away. When I looked at her son I saw that he had massive growths on his head, one on each side. They were so big that he had a hard time keeping his head held up. I was standing there totally frozen, not making eye contact and wishing that I wasn't in line at that moment. This situation surprised me because I am usually good at just being myself and showing the genuine love that I have for people.
I grabed my food and went and sat down. As I sat there I felt an amount of guilt that I have never really felt before. Here I had 2 perfectly healthy babies and hers had health issues that I can only imagine were incredily overwhelming. As I sat there things only got worst. People would stop at our table and say how beautiful the twins were but would pass her and not say a word. I know that they were just reacting the same as I had but I was wishing that someone could be bigger and better than I and go out of their comfort zone. I was feeling so much pain for her, I wan't them to all stop talking to me and go talk to her and tell her how beautiful her little boy was but nobody did.
Then 2 very sweet old men came up to us and started asking the usual questions; were they twins, how old were they, what their names were. I knew they were only being nice but I wanted them to just go away. Then this old man, (he was like 85 years old) pulled out his wallet and I was thinking "this is weird, maybe he is going to give Jack a dollar and tell him to save his money or something." The next thing I know he pulls out a twenty and hands it to Jack and says "Can you give to your mom and tell her thank you for being such a nice women and a good mom?" At this point I was crying, for a few reasons. 1st because that was so incredibly sweet but mostly because I was feeling so guilty. I wanted to turn around and hand it over to this mom and tell her that everything that man had said was really meant for her.
The old man left and then the mom left as well.
As I drove home I thought of all the things that I could have said or done. I could have just treated her like a fellow mother, I could have just SMILED. But I did nothing, I was the handicapped one. I cried, I cried because I was ashamed of myself, I cried because I felt guilt that my babies were so health, and I cried because I was GLAD that my babies were healthy. I prayed that Heavenly Father would forgive me for my weaknesses and that he would bless that sweet mother with patience for all the handicapped people like myself that there were out there.
I know that God gives each of us our trials because that's what we need. I know that God must really love and trust that mother to have given her such a PERFECT soul. This knowledge is what helped me realize that no matter what I do Heavenly Father loves his children more than any of us could and he would make up for where I am completely lacking.
I'm not one to feel guilty for very long so I'm over it. I figure that the best thing I can do is learn from my mistakes and and do better next time. I'm grateful for this experience and maybe some of you can learn from it as well:)