Kristin Sherman ran to the grocery store out of desperation for milk for her young sons, despite it being the last place she wanted to be on New Year’s Eve. She grabbed the gallon and just buckled her boys into their seats when she got a tap on the shoulder from a stranger.
The Michigan mom had to bear the freezing cold and chaotic holiday crowds with her two tired kids but did it anyway knowing that they would need their milk that night and was completely out. Her day had already been difficult with the kids and life in general, so the added task wasn’t what she needed, especially since things went from bad to worse.
Just when Kristin thought she had made it to her car and her warm home would soon be in sight, she dropped the milk she had just purchased and it spilled all over the pavement. Although it’s often said not to “cry over spilled milk,” this exhausted mother had every reason to as her kids were screaming in their seats and she would now have to run back into to store with them and get more milk. Just as she was about to unbuckle them, she felt someone nearby.
“I’m so sorry you spilled your milk,” a woman said to the mother when she wasn’t looking. As Kristen turned around, the woman had more to say. “I’m a grandma, I know how that is. Please let me go in and get you another one.”
Although she thought the gesture was kind, Kristin said she didn’t need to do that for her, but the grandmother insisted, telling the mother and her sons to wait outside in their car and she would be right back with the milk. Kristin reluctantly accepted the thoughtful offer and was shocked at what she saw when the woman returned.
As the mother waited outside the Meijer grocery store for the woman, later dubbed the “parking lot grandma,” her eyes began to well up with tears that a total stranger thought to stop and help her. “It doesn’t seem like a huge deal until you find yourself with two tired kids buckled in their seats, one crying parked almost at the end of the parking lot because it’s NYE,” she said in her post on WNEMTV5News’ Facebook page.
When the “Parking lot Grandma” returned, she didn’t just have a replacement gallon of milk with her, she had two of them and a gift card to the grocery store. As if her kind act wasn’t amazing enough, she went far beyond that with the extra gifts.
“I thanked her, gave her a hug and got into the car,” Kristin wrote. “She has no idea what her act of kindness did for me.”
With it being the dawn of a new year, the incredible incident caused the mother to reflect on what she hopes for 2017. By this stranger’s example and the impression she left on a woman who was feeling defeated that day, Kristin said she hopes “we can all be a little more like her,” calling for “more love and less hate” in this new year.
All it takes is for one kind word, a simple smile, or going out of your way for someone else when you see an opportunity to do so, to completely change the course of someone’s month. It doesn’t just help other people, you live a more fulfilled life too when you think outside yourself and your own problems.
