The Trucker in the Heartland.

When you marry young and have children young, you can expect to have some pretty awful days and some pretty nasty encounters with people from all backgrounds. My husband and I were quickly learning this, being married at nineteen and having our first son at twenty.

Now I’m not trying to have a pity party because of my decisions, but the spring of 2016 was shaping up to be pretty miserable and extremely tough on our young family. During the previous week, I had been shopping at Walmart when a middle aged woman approached me and made some very back handed remarks about being a mother so young and asked some questions that were definitely none of her business. Within that same week my husband had taken a pay cut in the farming industry and we were just barely getting by.

Needless to say I was in a depression and despised going out into the public eye for the fear of being criticized. I saved the grocery shopping for my dear husband when he would get off from work. Being young and inexperienced, Monday morning rolled around and I realized that we were nearly out of baby formula and diapers for our almost one year old.

Big whoops, on my part! I paced around our small rental home nearly wearing a tread into the already worn and stained carpet. I finally mustered up the courage around 10:00 in morning. So, while dreading the stares and trying to ignore my bubbiling anxiety, I loaded my baby boy into my little beat up white Jeep Grand Cherokee and made our way to the local small town grocery store.

I had my list and I kept repeating it into my head as I placed my son into the grocery cart. I wandered the isles looking for diapers, formula, milk, bread and some lunch meat. As I grabbed the final item on my list and breathed a small sigh of relief that I had made it through the store without any glares or comments. I had picked the perfect time of day to hit the store, nearly nobody was there besides an older gentlemen who smiled at me with a big toothless grin.

I knew the look, I noticed the Semi-truck out front parked parallel amongst the street. My father-in-law was a trucker, I knew from experience that not all truckers were friendly and some can be down right rude. Any way, I approached the checkout counter and placed my items on the belt and waited for the elderly lady who ran the store to ring me up.

As I waited for what felt like an eternity, the trucker saddled up behind me and continued smiling at me. She finally scanned my last item and the total popped up on the screen. $43.96, I pulled my debit card out of my little pink wallet and ran it through the machine, I nearly fainted as the “please use another form of payment” message popped up. I told the lady it must be a mistake and tried it again. Denied popped up in big red letters.

The anxiety bubbled up again and I could feel the tears starting to rise up. I tried to call my husband while I stood in line trying to keep a poker face, no answer came from my dear hubby. I asked the checker if I could have a moment to call my bank, she agreed and I pulled my cart to the side. It was if the world was plotting against me and laughing in my face. I had worked nearly everyday since I was 12 years old. This was the first time I had ever had my debit card denied and man was I panicking!

I called the bank, sure enough, we only had $5.00. My heart sank, the tears I worked so hard to bottle up came pouring out, there was no stopping this waterfall. I grabbed my purse, shoved my wallet inside and quickly started apologizing to the toothy gentleman behind for taking up the line and wasting the cashiers time. I unbuckled the car seat from shopping cart and Briskly walked out the door.

As I strapped my now screaming baby into the car, I heard a quiet “excuse me miss” behind me. I turned around wiping tears out of my eyes, trying to force a smile at whoever might be behind me. I turned around to see the friendly trucker and the old cashier behind me. The cashier spoke up and ask if I was alright. The tears started again at this simple phrase. She walked up and hugged me and it was then I realized she reminded me of my grandma. She spoke gently as she said this gentleman here would like to buy your groceries and a scoop of ice cream from the next door Dairy Queen.

What I didn’t know in my childish stereotyping of the trucker, was that he was a local in our small town, he was partially deaf and he had just lost his daughter who happened to be my age in a car wreck.

I looked from the cashier to the gentleman and I saw that behind his toothy smile there was tears welling up in his eyes. I thanked him profusely and told him I could just wait till my husband returns home from work that evening and I didn’t want to burden him. He stopped me and said “ it doesn’t matter, I have already bought them. I can see things are not going so easy for you right now and all I ask is that you pay it forward when you can.” He continued with “ now how bout’ we go pick out a scoop of ice cream before you head home.”

During the next 20 minutes that I shared with the trucker over at the Dairy Queen, I learned that he and his wife had been married at seventeen, had two daughters by the time they were twenty and lost his wife at thirty and now his youngest daughter. He told me life isn’t easy and to always to cherish what I have. He promised me that things will get better and that he will say some prayers for my small family.

As I walked back to my car and loaded up my baby boy, I couldn’t help but start to cry again and this time it wasn’t for me and my dilemmas. I had learned a lesson to not judge and had been taught to pay it forward. That evening when my husband walked in I hugged him and told him of the old trucker at the grocery store who had helped me. While my husband felt defeated that I was left in that situation, I felt calm and for the first time in awhile, optimistic of our future and a little bit braver to go into public. I realized that not everyone is out to judge me and there are good people out there.

Fast forward five years to the summer of 2020. In a year that can be considered a bad year for everybody, my little family was doing surprisingly well given the circumstances. My husband and I both have good jobs, we were lucky enough to to not catch the virus and our now two young boys were incredibly healthy. Knowing the struggles many of my fellow Americans have faced this past year, I feel almost guilty for what we have. In the past five years from my encounter with the trucker, I have learned many lessons and have grown into an adult I can be proud of.

The truckers lesson came back to the forefront of my mind one evening in July 2020, as my husband and I sat at a patio table outside of a Old Chicago on what would be our first date night since the beginning of lockdown. As we sat there eating dinner, I watched a young couple try to calm their toddler and newborn while the restaurant staff and other patrons just rolled their eyes. I could tell the half crazed look in the mother’s eyes as she began to get nervous and started to pack their things up to leave, even though they had not recieved their meals yet. I had the same look many times before in this same particular situation as a mother with two young children.

Without warning my husband, I invited the couple to come sit with us and told the waitress to add their bill to ours. While their situation was much different to my dilemma at the grocery store, I know how it feels to be a stressed young mother in public. While they were nervous about sitting with complete strangers, they gave us a chance and we had a great meal. Both the mother and father got to enjoy their meal while I distracted their toddler with patty cake and peekaboo. As we prepared to leave that evening, our new found friends thanked us profusely and were flabbergasted that we paid for their meal. I told them the story of the trucker and gave them the same pearl of wisdom he gave me “pass it on, you may never know what somebody is going through and a simple deed to make them smile may make all the difference. One smile can lead to hundreds more.”

I pass that simple phrase to everyone I know and while I may be guilty of making generalizations of people, I now know, not to judge a book by its cover and to always be aware of how the smallest deeds can make the biggest differences.