Three Wealthy Men

Last night I ran to wal-mart on a whim to collect a few cups of yogurt before they closed. By “before they close” I literally was walking in as the security guard was placing his key in the lock of the front sliding window doors. I ran as I could to attempt to be a little less impolite than I already felt in barging in last minute on the workers that were ready to get home. And then, I exhaled at the finish line to see two men in the one line that was left open with full carts. Full is quite an understatement actually. The tall skinny guy in a tank top and torn jeans that unloaded the mountain of boxes stacked several feet above the iron railed encasement deserved an award for his artistic ability to turn a grocery cart into a cargo van housing enough food to feed an army.

He glanced a stern glare in my direction as my tennis shoes scuffed the floor in a screeching halt from my sprint to the cashier line and then around and back at me twice as fi he was ref’ing a tennis tournament and I was on a side of the court that required surveillance. “You go,” he said, pointing a finger at the grocery conveyer belt, before strong holding the pile to slide it backward and make space for my yogurt cups. “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing this wasn’t the type of guy to be hard-pressed to do anything he didn’t fully intend upon. He had a rugged look about him. Serious. Intimating. Tired.

He nodded and I walked around him in line, graciously. A few moments later two tall boys showed up, adding boxes of cereal to his already monstrous cart. “Ocean!” He yelled. “Go get another milk, this one has a leak in it. And run!” He commanded the older boy as his feet set in motion without hesitation. The other boy peered over his shoulder. “Do you need me to do anything for you dad?” “No.” the father replied sternly.

There was a knowing in me as I watched the younger boy interacting with his father that this was their family in completion. There was no mom. He was mom. And there wasn’t much money either. I looked at their worn clothes and the bottom of the man’s shoes held tougher by a paperclip and then at the joy in their eyes as they communicated back and forth with few words – but none needed. They had love. They had respect for their father. They had gratitude.

After the cashier was finished with me, I looked back once more as the man smiled at me, “Have a good night miss.” I nodded and then turned to his boys and said, “Boys, your father is a good man.” He beemed with joy at my words as his face blushed over bright red. And the boys both smiled and nodded.

I thought about the three of them my drive home and how inspirited I felt to witness such admiration among men and young men; a spectacle rarely seen in today’s world. This father is my daily hero.