When I was a teenager, probably about 13, my mother taught me a very valuable lesson I've never forgotten. We were grocery shopping in a small store one day when I noticed another family also come into the store like us.

it looked like a mother, her daughter and her granddaughter. They were clean but dressed in worn chothes and it was obvious that they were less fortunate. They pushed a cart through the store, carefully considering and selecting items. I noticed that they were mostly generic and all necessary foods for a family.

My mother and I finished our shopping and pushing the shopping-cart headed toward the clerk to pay. As we got there, that family was in front of us with one person in between, waiting for the counter.

As I watched the family place groceries on the conveyor belt, I heard the mother ask the clerk every so often to subtotal, when each item was passed the teller machine as she only had  so much to spend. This took a while and the person in front of me started to get noticeably impatient and even started mumbling things which I'm sure were overheard.

When the store clerk did a final total, the woman did not have enough money after foraging all her pockets. So she began pointing to different food items to put back. Right away my mother reached in her purse, pulled out her last twenty dollar bill and handed it to the woman. The woman looked very surprised and said: "I can't take that!".My mother looked directly into her eyes and quietly replied, "It doesn't matter at all.You most certainly can. Consider it a gift. There's nothing in that cart you don't really need, so please accept it."

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