Saturday, March 13, 2010

A Reminder To Be Kind

I felt really badly today.  A man called and asked for Papaya Concentrate.  I don't carry that & told him so.  He sounded a little out of it, so I grew impatient when he asked a few more questions.  He asked if I was sure, yes I was sure, & he asked if I knew where he could get it & I told him he could call Whole Foods.  Well, I waited on a few more customers & the phone rang again, my mom answered it.  I could tell by her responses that it was the same guy.  I'm giving her faces that indicated he just called & I said no!  Well, as a few minutes passed, my mom was almost in tears in response to the conversation.  Turns out, this man's father is in Hospice, with Pancreatic Cancer, close to dying & he was looking for a few things, anything that might help.  I felt my stomach drop as I realized what was going on!  While my mom was still on the phone with him, I tried getting a hold of a few other Health Food Stores in the area, they didn't have it.  I can order it but it won't be in til next Friday.  It's easy to forget that there is a lot of pain out there and each individual human being is going through something, sometimes extraordinarily sad circumstances that we have no clue about.  This man told my mother that he had found our website and by reading through the newsletters and blog, he realized how much we cared about people and that's why he called.  I was reminded of that by this man.  It's easy for me to lose patience, but I'm going to work on that.  I want to be of help at the other end of the line, not another burden for the person who's calling.  It ALWAYS pays to be KIND.