My town has an annual Easter egg hunt the day before Easter. It’s run by a local non profit organization. It’s a huge community event. They will divide up a local school’s grass field into sections. Each section has a designated age group to keep things fair. I have 2 children, 5M and 2F. My son was with my husband and I, my daughter was with her grandparents.

The announcer sounds the alarm and the kids are off. My son is tall for his age but quite sensitive. He doesn’t like confrontation or pushing. Quite a few kids get ahead of him so he’s unable to get very many eggs. His dad and I are screaming to tell him to get ahead. Run ahead of the other kids. He doesn’t. He’s halfway through the field and only has 4 eggs and starts to cry. We keep pointing him the direction if more eggs. Once all the eggs are gone he only has 6 while all the other kids have 20+. He’s crying. We’re trying to console him.

As we’re consoling him I hear a mom tell her daughter, “you have too many eggs. That boy doesn’t have enough.” She takes 4 eggs out of her daughter’s basket and throws them back on to the field and signals me. I tell my son to look at the field. He excitedly runs back for them. I yell a “thank you.” I’m about to have my son thank her when she signals me not to.

I’m hoping in the years to come, I can pay it forward the same way this mom did.