A number of years ago, my husband and I went to Applebees on our Anniversary for a quiet dinner together. It was, indeed, very quiet, because my husband had just been ordered to undergo an MRI, and we knew that the results might change our future forever. Still, we did what old married couples often do, we sat and held hands and talked about everyday kinds of things. We ordered a small dessert to celebrate.
However, when we went to pay, the waitress told us that someone had overheard that it was our anniversary, and had paid for our dinner.
Over the next year, we would discover my husband had a progressive, terminal neurological disease. While we went back to Applebees one other time, that would be the very last time we had dinner there together on our anniversary. The following year he would be vomiting in rehab, and by the year after he was confined to a wheelchair. While I could, I would do a curbside order and we would still share that same meal even if it was at home. But in my heart I always carried the memory of that kind person who had no idea how important that gift of love was on that particular day.
When we do a kind deed, we never know whose lives we will touch.