I was in a pharmacy several weeks ago.
I waited in line to pick up a prescription. Sitting near me next to the free blood pressure machine and watching the wall-mounted TV was a young man and woman with a toddler. The little boy was so tired and so sickly, coughing and sneezing and even crying at times that I worried that he should have been home in a warm crib in his pajamas with a warm blanket.
But this wasn’t the case.
I was just recovering from the flu, myself, so I had a recent feeling of what misery was all about.
Sitting on the other side of the small waiting area was a very quiet young lady. I remember noticing tattoos on the tops of her hands, and a stud piercing in her nose.
But during the 45 minutes or so we all waited, she was busy texting and there wasn’t any real feeling of camaraderie between the small group of us.
Meanwhile other customers would drop off prescriptions or pick them up.
Finally, the three of us, all looked up and saw our numbers on the sign. I walked up in my suit and tie and got in line behind the young family. The woman was behind me.
The meds the family were picking up I’m guessing were for the child. When the family was told there was a co-pay of $5, they said that they had never had to pay a co-pay before this. They did not have the $5. They were going to walk out of that store with a sickly child without the meds.
I had always wondered while standing in similar lines to buy food in a grocery store if the person in front of me fell short of funds, how should I step in to pay or help pay their bill if I could afford it?
My mind was racing as it got a little awkward between the family and the pharmacy cashier. Just then a voice: “How much is the co-pay?”
The voice came from the woman standing behind me.
She stepped forward and paid the bill for the medicine and for her own prescription.
A grateful mother and father thanked the woman they didn’t know.
I also thanked her. So did the cashier.
It was an example of God’s work here on earth. She didn’t have to think about the right thing to do, she just did it.
Somewhere in all of this, the woman will one day be helped for the work she did in that line for that moment.
In the meantime, I hope that the little boy was healed by the medicine. I hope he is warm and has food in his stomach.
And I hope that his parents are employed and covered by a health care plan that they can afford.
But I thank the quiet lady with the tattoos and the piercing.
I learned a lot about action over thought and that it sometimes has to happen with immediacy.

Why didn’t you get a flu shot last fall?