Since that day, I’ve started paying closer attention to the people around me — the cashier who looks tired but still manages a smile, the neighbor who waves from across the yard, the shopper struggling with too many bags.
Because maybe, in those small moments, we have the chance to do for someone else what that woman did for me: to remind them that the world isn’t as cold or hurried as it sometimes seems.
And now, every time I look at a receipt, I smile and think of her.
Because sometimes, the most ordinary things can carry the most extraordinary messages — the kind that tell us we’re not alone, that someone out there is still paying attention, still choosing to care.
