My grandmother lived in the small hamlet of Shinglehouse, PA for 50+ years until her death last year.  Shinglehouse is a very small community of 1200 people, 3 churches, a grocery store, a drug store and a gas station that doubles as an eatery. So, a few years back when she learned that Dollar General was building a new store in her, she became excited and began to count down the days until the store opened.   This meant that she would have access to many items that she could only get by paying a premium at the town grocery or by driving 20 miles.

Upon my grandmother’s death it became apparent that she had made a large impact on the workers of the Dollar General.  The workers at this store pooled together money to buy flowers for my grandmother’s wake.  This was not a small gesture as I would imagine that these workers do not collect six figure salaries.  It was a beautiful flower arrangement that included my grandmother’s favorite colors of aqua blue and yellow.  They obviously knew my grandmother very well.  Several workers attended her wake and told me a story about my grandmother that I had not heard before.

This is the story.  On a winter morning, my grandmother was shopping in the store and women with no shoes ran into the store.  If you live in New Jersey and see someone run into a store without shoes, the normal reaction is to get as far from the person as possible.  But, this wasn’t a reaction that was in my grandmother’s nature.  She approached the women and learned that the women and her family had just lost everything in a fire and that the women had left her home with no shoes.  So, without hesitation she handed the women money to buy new shoes.

 What would you do?  If you died today, how would you want to be remembered? 

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Posted Tuesday, October 20, 2009 11:19 PM by Melissa | (Comments Off)