Learning How to Receive
The next morning, Mia went grocery shopping with Grandma Dorothy and me. She reached for her favorite cereal, noticed the $6 price tag, and silently put it back before choosing a $3 box.
I picked up the original cereal and placed it back in the cart.
“You don’t have to earn every good thing that comes your way,” I told her.
Dorothy smiled and tossed an $8 package of Mia’s favorite cookies into the cart.
“If we’re spending the money, we might as well enjoy every bite,” she said.
At the checkout, Mia hugged the cereal against her chest, her faded camp bracelet still wrapped around her wrist.
Denise had never been trying to reject my daughter.
She had simply noticed something I hadn’t fully understood—that Mia had started treating kindness like a debt that always had to be repaid.
And sometimes, the hardest lesson isn’t learning how to give.
It’s learning that you’re allowed to receive, too.
