Teacher Handed Note & Little Girl's Ice Cream Money to Help Pay for Funeral
Although we shouldn’t allow ourselves to sink into despair, it’s worth noting that pain is part of human existence. However, we also shouldn’t forget that kindness and compassion are too.
Just consider the case of Price Lawrence, a sixth-grade teacher at Highlands Elementary in Huntsville, Alabama.
On Feb. 20, he showed up at class, and students could immediately tell something wasn’t right.
A cheery fan of science fiction and medieval reenactment, Lawrence was anything but buoyant. The reason why came out when his students started questioning him.
“I explained to them that my wife’s father had passed away this weekend and that I was worried about her,” he wrote on his Facebook wall.
“They all said they were sorry, and then we got started on our work.”
It could’ve ended there, just a polite exchange of pleasantries. But instead, one young student stepped up and transformed the Lawrence’s day with a simple, heartfelt gesture.
“While standing at my door giving hugs and high fives at dismissal to second period, one little girl put something in my hand,” Lawrence wrote. “She told me, ‘This is for your wife.’”
What she’d passed to him was a note on an index card that read, “Ms. Lawrence, I’m sorry,” and 75 cents — her ice cream money.
The teacher added that the little girl said, “I know it was real expensive when my daddy died and I don’t really want ice cream today anyways.”
A tiny gesture, one so small that some might call it meaningless. But it meant the world to Lawrence and his wife, Jessica.
On Facebook, Jessica also sounded off on that act, saying, “This little girl’s heart affected me in the most positive way today.
“Her act of love and generosity, from a total stranger and child no less, reminds me of a quote from Mr. Rogers discussing tragedy.
“‘My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
In world turned topsy turvy, such people don’t always announce themselves with headlines and ticker-tape parades.
Sometimes they show up with simply a kind word and enough spare change for an ice cream.
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