It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and I was frantically trolling the aisles of Walmart (please don’t judge me . . .), looking for the last of the elusive stocking stuffers, ‘cause at our house stockings are always stuffed, most often to overflowing. The toy section is usually my first stop, since we’re all still kids at heart (at least that’s what I kept telling myself) and just as I was about to turn down a particular aisle two young boys came running toward me. Well, not really toward me, but that’s what I thought for a moment. They were actually headed toward the man behind me—someone I assumed was their dad who was instructing one of them to turn around saying, “You need to go back. You missed one. Remember? I told you there were three?”

By now my curiosity was more than a little peaked.

The boy turned and headed back down the aisle, stopping at a cart being pushed by a young woman.  Two very confused boys were standing beside her, holding envelopes, with a third in the cart—evidently the one that was missed. The delivery boy ran up to the cart, handed him an envelope, and ran back to his dad, at which point the three of them headed farther into the store, with more envelopes still to be given away.

I moved on into the aisle (since that had been my intention all along), but now I was focused more on the envelopes than my quest for yo-yos and Slinkys (again, please don’t judge me . . .). Each one held a Christmas card . . . and a $10.00 bill.

This man and his two sons were walking through Walmart on Christmas Eve, handing out Christmas cards and Christmas cash to random children, then vanishing before anyone even realized what had happened, much less had the chance to say thank you. I know because, when I understood what they were doing, I began searching the store, up one aisle and down the other—and crossways in case I missed a spot.

I wanted to tell them thank you. I wanted to tell them how much I appreciated their unsolicited act of kindness in a world that is all too often unkind. They might as well have thrown on a cloak on invisibility. Or left not long afterwards. However they managed it, I never found them. But I left that day with a smile in my heart, inspired to follow in their footsteps. I called my daughter and told her what I’d just seen. And that next year, I wanted to do the same thing. And I wanted to bring her son . . . my grandson . . . with me so he could experience the joy of giving while expecting nothing in return. So, he could experience the joy found in blessing those who least expected it and leave behind the kind of wonder I had just seen slowly spread across each of those boys’ faces. And their mother’s.

So, to that dad who took his kids to Walmart on Christmas Eve, not to buy them anything or to pick up last minute gifts, but to teach them the art of giving . . . thank you. Thank you for inspiring me to do the same, and not just at Christmas. Thank you for showing me the goodness that still remains in this world. You gave me a gift far greater than you could ever imagine.

About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.