My mom and I had a “big day out” today. First I took her to a doctor’s appointment only to find out that there was a scheduling error, so she could not be seen. But the girls there were nice and told us what needed to be done to get it corrected. We were close to the place where my mom got her hearing aids and she has been wanting to get them checked, so we headed over there instead. The ladies there were super nice and made some adjustments to the devices. My mom said she could hear great. Ironically, as we headed out the door the battery died in one of them. So, we went right back in and were given some new batteries. Then we went to lunch at Panera – one of my favorite places. On our way in, one of the employees came right over and held the door for us. My mom had not been there in a long time and we both enjoyed it. As we finished eating, the same employee took our dishes so we did not even have to clear our table. Last, we wanted to shop for a new range. We knew that this one would take a lot of walking, so we brought the new walker that my dad bought. It was great. My mom was able to wheel around to look at all the options and just sit down when she needed it. When we settled on a stove, we called and talked to my dad to get his input and he looked up some reviews in a Consumer Reports magazine for us. One of the sales guys came over several times and also looked up online reviews for us. As we went to make the purchase, I told the salesman that we had a coupon from the repair men who came the other day to look at the broken stove, but we did not have it with us. He called over another person who said that they would be able to honor the coupon. My mom wrote a check, but it was rejected. Needless to say, this really upset my mom. She called her bank who said that everything was fine and they tried it again to no avail. So she put the the purchase on her charge card instead. The sales person apologized and gave my mom a credit for the coupon, plus an additional “I am sorry for the problems” credit. It seemed that every place we went there were people who treated my mom with the care and respect she deserves.

I Found God today in the people we encountered who treated my mom so well, especially when not everything went exactly according to OUR plan.