Cherries and Charity

Working as a cashier for several years now, I have both
witnessed and been a participant in many acts of charity.

I’ve worked as a cashier for over four years now. Presently, I’m employed with a local grocery store and I love my job. It’s true that standing on your feet for hours and hours can be difficult; my back and feet hurt at the end of an 8-hour shift, and I rely heavily on intermittent doses of ibuprofen during and after a work shift. But I love connecting with people every day and find most of my customers to be pleasant people (there are, of course, always exceptions, and I am thankfully a pretty patient and forgiving person).

I like the fact that being a cashier gives me an excuse or a reason to talk to strangers, whereas I am usually kind of hesitant interacting with people I don’t know in other circumstances. I see the opportunity to ask about someone’s day while giving them a huge, natural smile as an enjoyable task, and not just part of my job description. I often tell people (and I told the store manager this when I was interviewed for this position) that I see two options when interacting with others: You can make someone’s day worse, or you can make it better; you can leave people feeling glad that they interacted with you, or cause them to regret that your paths ever crossed.

I know this all sounds like cheesy, helplessly-optimistic job interview fodder, but I actually mean it—I want to make others happy and I want them to feel cared about. Certainly this desire also relates to my perfectionistic efforts to please others at my own expense, which behaviors have been toxic for me at times, and still remain an active struggle. But under the assumption that I will have one shot to make or break someone’s day, and reasoning that I may not ever see them again (though, of course I have regular customers), I like to do my best to give people a good experience—not just with the business I represent, but with a fellow member of the human family.

Though I have my rough days, I still see my customer service
job as an opportunity to bring love and joy to strangers.

If I can show forth extra compassion, care, love, humor, sympathy, empathy, or just relate to someone on a personal level while I am ringing up their groceries, I will feel like I’ve done my part as an employee and as a person. My values are old-fashioned, it seems—courtesy, politeness, friendliness, respect, and integrity—characteristics that I not only appreciate in others, but that I try to live by. And in our turbulent, disconnected world, connecting with another person face to face instead of through an electronic screen, seems to be a growing novelty—I dare even say an epidemic.

And I truly believe that small gestures can have large, positive consequences; perhaps this is why smiling at others when I make eye contact with them has become a habit for me. Not smiling when someone looks at me feels foreign and uncomfortable at this point. Smiles can brighten days and illuminate lives that are dreary; I know, because the smiles of others have pulled me out of the emotional cloudiness of stress and fatigue numerous times—and the smiling strangers have no idea that they have helped me.

The anonymity, for lack of a better word, of giving to someone else without expecting anything in return, is a feeling of goodness that I strive for. When I can tell I’ve made an emotional connection with a stranger, I have a bit more of a reward; but there is still a certain soft, gentle thrill in not knowing—and usually hoping in my heart—that my efforts at being personable were life changing. Again, this is something I know from rare experience, having been told how the sharing of my love or talents has changed individual lives, years after the fact. If anything, it’s a reminder that I have an influence on others, whether I think so or not; and I want to influence in joyful ways.

When cherry season came, I longed to buy
some of the nostalgic fruit of my childhood.

As the summer months began this year, the fruits and vegetables in season changed at the store where I work. I was adjusting to memorizing 4-digit PLU codes for produce that we did not have in abundance when I began my job in the spring—sweet corn, peaches, nectarines, and plums. I was particularly excited about the bags of dark-red cherries. I love cherries; growing up, several neighbors had black cherry trees that I would climb or shake to retrieve the fruit, and my summers were spent eating as many cherries as I could find. But for some reason, I haven’t had cherries in years, probably as younger generations of home owners have moved into older homes where fruit trees dotted the property, and have opted to pull the trees up in order to maintain the yard more easily.

With each bag of cherries I rang up (the code for them is 4045, by the way), the more I wanted to taste them again. But despite working again after six jobless months, I was still struggling financially. This is the first employer I’ve worked for that offered me accommodations for my Tourettes, OCD, anxiety, and depression through the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). When I struggle to come into work, for whatever reason related to my challenges, my employment with the company is protected so that I won’t lose my job as easily as I have lost jobs in the past because of the same reasons. Though I worried about feeling like I had a “free pass” to miss work, I have found peace of mind in knowing that I can call my employer in a timely manner and take the day off when I need to without getting written up or fired.

Needless to say, there are still consequences, as I am the one who has to deal with losing the working hours, and therefore losing out on pay. Even though I am working again, money has been tight as I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck, paying bills and covering new expenses that I didn’t have when I was unemployed and receiving help from the state and my LDS ward. Even just buying food is a problem, when for six months I received “food stamps” and groceries from the Latter-day Saint food pantry for the needy, known as the Bishop’s Storehouse.

So what does this have to do with cherries? Well, for several weeks I was strapped for cash because I had called in to work several times in a pay period. I literally had pennies in my checking and savings accounts, and my credit card and overdraft line-of-credit were maxed out. One day before going into work, I asked my roommate if I could borrow five dollars to buy some food on my lunch break that night; I tend to get the jitters if I don’t eat when I am working—kind of like a sugar crash that people get when they eat sweets or energy drinks on an empty stomach.

I was broke until payday; the only money I had was a pocketful of
loose change that I had to borrow from my roommate.

Of course, this is 2018, and my roommate asked if he could send me the money using a money transfer app, which I don’t have. The only option was good, old-fashioned pocket change, which my roommate retrieved from a jar in his closet. I went to work with five dollars in quarters. I bought some cheap snacks that I felt would sustain me through the rest of my shift, and had about two dollars left over, with which I planned to buy some cherries, which were on sale. I could just get a handful with the money I had—just enough to taste them and see if they were as good as they looked.

I eyeballed the bags of cherries that came through all during that shift. I checked the weights on the screen to see if I could gauge how many cherries I could get with two dollars, at $1.48 per pound. One gentleman, a younger man, came through and bought one full bag of cherries, plus a small produce sack of a few more cherries. We chatted casually, and I commented on how good the cherries looked. He asked if I’d tried them, since it was still relatively early in the season, wondering if they were sweet or tart.

I told him I hadn’t had any yet, but that I knew the darker they were, the sweeter they tended to be. He agreed, and asked how long they’d be on sale. I told him I wasn’t sure, but that they were the lowest I’d seen them since we first got them into the store; I commented randomly, just making conversation, that I planned to buy some when I got paid, and that I hoped they stayed on sale that long. When I weighed the small sack of cherries, it came to just under two dollars. After the gentleman paid I looked at the small bag closely, and hefted it in my hands a bit before sending them down the conveyor belt to the bagging area (at my store, customers bag their own groceries).

The young man asked if I noticed anything wrong with the cherries, since it is not uncommon to find a bug now and then, or a rotten fruit or vegetable among the rest. I replied that I was just making a mental note of the amount of cherries in the bag because I only had two dollars, and that particular bag cost just under that amount. He nodded in acknowledgement, and I thought nothing of it, because I am generally pretty honest with my customers, even while keeping a positive tone (for example, when customers ask how I am, which happens dozens of times a day, I don’t mind saying “I’m a little tired, but I’m doing great!” if such is the case; it is generally a point of interest for people, as we can talk about our busy days together and how much we look forward to going home, etc.).

After talking with a customer about my eagerness to try the
cherries, he discreetly gifted me a bag and left without a word.

A few minutes after the young gentleman left, a coworker who runs the self-checkout registers walked up to me with bag full of cherries. “A customer said to give this to you; I don’t know what it’s about,” she told me, looking confused. “What did he look like?” I asked, smirking. “Young guy, light-brown hair, white shirt…” she rattled off, and I recognized her description as the young man with whom I was discussing the cherries. I couldn’t help but smile widely as I put the cherries under my register.

I smiled for many minutes, flattered, humbled, and honored that someone had quietly decided to treat me so considerately by offering generous charity. But soon the guilt set in; I started retracing my words to the man, wondering if I had sounded as if I were dropping hints. If I had done anything to elicit his charity, I told myself, then I will feel awful. How embarrassing, I said. How whiny and needy I must’ve sounded, I thought. As I often do after being the recipient of charitable acts of kindness, I questioned whether my ability to relate to people and talk as “one of them,” a fellow human, made others feel obligated to serve me, like some pitiful charity case.

I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind. I rejoiced that I still had two dollars that I could use to buy snacks the next time I worked, or purchase some prescription medicine that I needed. I soothed my fears by declaring in my heart that when I had the chance to pay that man’s charity forward to someone else, I would. Whenever I receive charity, I always try to find a way to pay it forward when I am financially able to do so. Feeling resolved in this, I tried to smile again and looked forward to eating my cherries on my next break.

Promising myself that I would "pay it forward," that opportunity
came sooner than I expected in the form of a gallon of milk.

A large women soon came through my line in a seated electric shopping cart. In one hand she held an empty cardboard Tootsie Roll container which doubled as a loose change bank. In her other hand she held a slip from the change-counting machine near the entrance of our store; the slip can be redeemed for cash or purchases. On the conveyor belt was one gallon of whole milk. I realized in a moment that this woman had cashed in all the change she had in that Tootsie Roll cylinder in order to buy a single needed grocery item. I felt badly for her; I was instantly humbled, even in my own wanting circumstances.

I wasn’t sure how to cash out a receipt from the coin-counting machine; I had only done it once before, and that customer had used the money to buy groceries. The customer service desk usually redeemed these receipts for large amounts, but it was after 10:00 PM, so the customer service desk was closed. The woman’s meager reward from the cardboard bank was only about three dollars, so I decided just to try cashing out the slip like I had done only once before and letting her buy the milk with the money.

However, I made the mistake of not ringing up the milk first, which would’ve allowed me to use the change receipt as payment for the purchase, and then give her the remaining change. Instead, my cash register popped open and indicated me to give her the full amount of her redemption. I pulled the money from my till, and handed it to the woman. “Okay,” I said pleasantly, “I’m going to give you your money, and then I will take care of the milk for you.” But the instant I said it, I realized that it was misinterpreted, which was entirely my fault.

The woman’s mouth opened and her eyes suddenly sparkled. “Aww!” she softly exclaimed, “Thank you so much!” At this point I hesitated briefly, realizing I couldn’t go back on my words now—the woman thought that I had offered to buy her gallon of milk, and I wasn’t about to backtrack when I could tell that she was so touched by my unintentional gesture of charity. Before she could sense my hesitation, I smoothly rang in the milk, smiling big, and reached into my pocket discreetly for the money to pay for it; the total came to the exact amount of change I had left.

Like the widow and her two mites, I was grateful that I could give
what little I had to someone with a need greater than my own.

I put the coins into my till, pulled the receipt from the printer, crumpled it, and tossed it into the garbage in a way almost symbolic of my feeling that the act was nothing praiseworthy, because it really wasn’t. I had seen customers pay for strangers’ groceries many times over the years when the total was far greater, and so, perhaps, was the need. But to the woman, it meant more than just two dollars. “You are an angel; thank you,” said the woman before she grabbed her gallon of milk and drove the electric cart away. I waved and wished her well, perhaps more sincerely than I had any other customer that day. Though my smile lingered, in my head I thought that I would again have to figure out a way to buy food for lunch at work the next day, and wait on that medication (which, by the way, was not critical to my health).

But before I could worry about my financial situation or feel sorry for myself, the Spirit impressed upon me the realization that my opportunity to pay it forward for the gift of a bag of cherries had already come to pass, and only minutes after I was made the recipient of charity myself. At this thought, I laughed softly—that quiet, shake-of-the-head, “I’ll-be-darned” sort of laugh that pronounces that the Lord really does work in mysterious ways as the pieces all come together. I couldn’t help but thank God for presenting me with the chance not just to be served, but to serve again in return, when I already had so little to give.

I thought of the story of widow’s mite recorded in the New Testament. Jesus, observing the rich casting money noisily into the treasury boxes, saw a poor, unassuming widow approach the collection box and quietly drop in two mites, or the smallest denomination of coin available at that time. Getting His disciples attention, Jesus declared that this poor widow’s offering was worth more than the offerings of those who “did cast in of their abundance” for all to see; for the Lord, discerning the intents of her heart, understood that the widow “of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living,” or all she had to live on, in other words (Mark 12:41-44).

I do not intend to praise myself, or sound the trumpet before me by writing this (see Matthew 6:2). The story of the widow’s mite is a favorite of mine, and as someone who has lived largely in poverty for many years, I very much understand her plight. Though she had little, her heart was turned toward something better for which she was willing to make a sacrifice. The treasury boxes where the widow cast in her donation belonged to the temple at Jerusalem. Monetary donations to the temple in Jesus’ day were both expected for adult Jews over a certain age, and also welcomed when given by freewill.

When vanity and pride are at the heart of our charity, we lose the
true reward of rendering compassionate service.

Though I didn’t understand the exact circumstances of the woman in my line who needed a gallon of milk, I believed that the little money I possessed (which was given to me in the first place) could do more good when spent on behalf of someone else whose need I perceived to be greater than my own. Likewise, the widow didn’t know how much good her farthing would make in the grand scheme of things, but she gave what she could give to help a cause she believed in, trusting that her gift would make a difference in the house of Jehovah, and that God would reward her faith.

I liken my experience to that of the widow and her two mites. I could’ve dramatically pulled the change from my pocket and tossed it loudly into my till one coin at a time to make sure everyone knew that I was doing something that others might find praiseworthy; in that way, I would’ve had my reward (see Matthew 6:2). Similarly, the young man who bought my cherries could’ve sauntered over to me and announced boisterously that he was giving me a gift that he knew would be meaningful to me as he handed me the bag.

But I he didn’t and neither did I. He left a lasting impression upon me that he didn’t even stick around to take credit for; I wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him again, though he probably still does his shopping at my store. But I would want to thank him. I would want him to know how his gift of charity made me feel, but that’s not important to him, I am pretty certain. Likewise, I don’t require praise from the woman I helped, because my joy was found in her sparkling eyes the minute I accidentally made her my beneficiary.

Wise and heartfelt sentiment to this end was once given by an English writer and Puritan minister named John Bunyan (abt. 1628 – 1688), who wrote:

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

By the way—the cherries were delicious.

(Above is a beautiful visual portrayal of the account of the widow's mite created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  See more videos HERE.)