We simply never know what someone else is going through, nor do we know how a simple bit of connection can offer so much healing
Twenty-five-year-old server Katie Miller certainly never would have anticipated that a seemingly ordinary conversation between her and a couple dining at her restaurant would lead to her getting a handwritten note that left her “sobbing mid shift.”
But as the scribblings left on the back of the receipt revealed, this was the couple’s first outing since losing their 27-year-old daughter, and apparently Miller offered them a precious gift: an opportunity to smile once again.
The note read:
“Thank you for your wonderful service. Our 27-year-old daughter passed away unexpectedly about 5 weeks ago and today is the first day I have been able to get my wife out to enjoy a real meal. Thank you for making her smile. You will never know what it means to us.”
What did Miller and this woman talk about that lifted her spirits? Hair and aging. Miller shared with Newsweek that she complimented the woman’s “beautiful curly red hair,” noting how “people nowadays are dying their hair to look like hers.” The woman then laughingly admitted she dyed her hair to cover some grays. Miller quipped that she just plucked hers out. That’s it. Such a normal, everyday conversation, but it made such a lasting impact.
Then, after seeing the note left for her, Miller told Newsweek, “You would never have guessed. It broke me. It hurts knowing people are struggling like that.” Though she didn’t approach the couple again, she decided to share the story on TikTok to help remind others that “Kindness goes a long way. We can truly heal others if we’re nice.”
From the slew of similar stories shared by fellow service workers in the comment section, we can take solace in the fact that these occurrences maybe aren’t as rare as we think they are.
“I took my son to work with me once, and a single man who only ordered a $3 beer tipped me $100 and wrote ‘I used to go to work with my mom too. Make sure you take him to the movies after your shift, on me.’ I kept the receipt until it crumbled.”
“One time while working in retail I was checking out these items for this older woman and I complimented her necklace. She started crying and telling me how her late husband gifted it to her. She said I made her day.”
“I had a customer ask me how old my kid was after talking about him for a while. Customer paid up and said ‘your kid is 5, correct/’ I said yes sir. Handed my 5 $100 bills and said ‘use this for him please.’ His grandson passed away, also 5. I haven’t cried that hard in my adult life ever.”
“One time I worked at Sonic, I took a woman’s drink out to her, she was sobbing alone in her car. I felt weird asking but something in me felt it was necessary…she told me her daughter had just recently tried to take her own life and was in the hospital, she wasn’t sure if she would make it and was beside herself with sadness. I opened the door and just hugged her. For a moment we both needed that hug. She told me I reminded her of her daughter and how beautiful she is when she smiled. Even since then I learned to always be kind.
“We were really busy one night when I was working the bar at a restaurant I used to work at in college. I noticed a man a few rows back, just waiting in the crowd. Never moving forward. He hadn’t been served and was very hesitant looking worried. I decided to approach him…turned out he was deaf and just super overwhelmed. We wrote back and forth that evening and I made sure I stayed on top of his service. When he left, he handed me a note, and in it he told me he gets ignored a lot in busy places…The last line said, ‘thank you for SEEING me’…it broke my heart thinking about how ppl had overlooked him so often. I’m so glad I could at least make THAT night better for him. I cried in the kitchen for a good bit after he left.”
“One lady at the bar I bartended at was staring at me so oddly during the whole time I was taking care of them…honeslty I thought she didn’t like me. But before they left she came up to me and said ‘this might be weird but it is so good to meet you again’ and handed me a note [that] said I looked and talked and walked, even smiled like her best friend that had passed a few years ago…I cried so hard;I keep it in my glove box now.”
Interacting with strangers is a necessary part of life. Then again, life has a way of reminding us that none of us are really strangers at all. We all carry pain, we all seek out connection, and we all need help finding a reason to smile from time to time. May this be a friendly reminder to be that person for someone else, whenever possible.
