[freshnesschronic]

In the past 24 hours I have witnessed some amazing events.
I work at Jewel-Osco, a local midwest grocery store, as a cashier. I do this every Xmas break, to make some cash. Yesterday night I saw a couple try to purchase an over $30 order and their credit card got declined. They didn't have any other form of payment and the man was scrambling through his wallet in search of, who knows. The lady behind them out of nowhere offered to pay for the whole order. I was startled, to pay fully for a $30 order? That's quite a bit of money. I said "ma'am, you don't have to." She said "no, it's ok, I'll pay for it." I informed the couple who look surprised too, almost at a loss of words. The man started to say something but never formed a word. The woman said "I'll pay, I know what it's like to have this happen, it's ok." The man finally said "well at least let me give you my phone number so--" but the kind woman cut him off "no it's quite alright, I assure you." I haven't seen an act of kindness like this in quite a while, and I just wanted to say I was very impressed at what happened in my lane.

On another note, this morning I woke up to get ready to go back to work. I hadn't put my contacts in and went to the bathroom. I peered out the window and saw big snowflakes. "Great" I thought. At that very moment out of nowhere I witnessed a head on car crash collision. The first thing that thought me was "woa." Not even a very surprised woa, or even a scared woa, just an awe of "woa." I squinted as I saw the people get out of the car and my mind literally stopped working. It was if I was in theater mode, I just watched for a whole minute. I then went into my room, all casually and brought my contacts into the bathroom and put them in and continued watching. It was only then when I could see them and then registered the babies crying and how many family members were in the car that took the beef of the hit, did I start to feel any human emotion. What do I do? Do I call 911? Are they ok? I can't see much, except the people who are ok and moving around. Oh shit....There was another car that had veered off of the road and into the ditch and it's tire had come off and was on the road. I did not see that white car until then, but I'm guessing the white car triggered something to make the two other mini vans hit head on. What I'm guessing happened is the white car for some reason lost control and was heading east and spun out and landed in the opposite lane's ditch, facing the opposite direction and the uncontrolled skidding and impact loosened its tire. I didn't see this happen, I can only infer. The blue mini van going west saw this slowed down, probably from afar. The green mini van, traveling the same direction as the white car, saw this from afar but decided to keep going at a steady pace. The distance between them did not allow green mini van to see the blue mini van, and there was not enough time to react as they hit in the middle of the road, with the green mini van going at maybe 40 miles an hour. Anyways, the white mini van was filled with 8 or so members of a family with probably 3 children. I started to think after watching for a couple minutes, aren't they getting cold? Should I invite them in? It was right behind my house on the road. My parents weren't home and I had to work in an hour from then. I'd probably be late for work. I didn't know what to do. Allow 12-15 people into my kitchen? Would that be smart? They don't seem fatally injured. I was at a moral dilemma...So I just watched as the people got on their cell phones and checked inside their cars. Finally 6 or 7 minutes after the crash I thought "my area is on the edge of two cities and their is bad reception. The police haven't show up yet..." So I called 9-1-1 and they took my name down as a witness, because as I ended the call the police arrived--someone had already alerted them. My mom was coming home from shopping and I showed her what had happened. She was shocked too and hoped they were ok. But she didn't mention inviting them in from the cold weather, which made me feel a little better with my decision.

So I was wondering, did I have the responsibility as an eye witness who never was at the scene, to invite those people inside? What if it had been worse? My mother's unresponsive actions validated my reasoning a little bit but what if she too reacted unethically? After seeing this great display of kindness by the woman at the grocery store I've been questioning myself. The ambulances arrived 15 minutes later, and I saw at least 3 people being put in stretchers, granted I was not watching the scene the entire time. I got myself ready for work and went, taking the neighborhood roads to avoid the mess behind my house.

But I still question what I should have done, in this season of giving.