A girl was born in a small West Texas farming town on August 26, 1929,twomonths and three days before Black Tuesday, the Stock Market crash thatstarted the Great Depression. As the youngest daughter of sharecroppers,who earned their living by picking cotton, she knew the meaning ofbarelygetting by. Times were tough and she learned to never waste anything.
Her Uncle Jess was a compassionate man who always treated her withkindness. Each time she would visit him, she always left with the samefeeling: I am special. After all, she was the only person who wasallowedto drink from his special pink drinking glass. One day, she took thepinkglass out to the water cooler, a special room that stored and cooled thewater generated from the windmill. Out in the water cooler, she droppedtheglass. Looking down at the hundreds of glass fragments, she began tocry.She had been entrusted with this special glass and now it was broken.
Her crying was interrupted when she heard Uncle Jess call out, "RubyNell,I was thinking. I'm tired of that silly old pink glass. Would you pleasebreak it for me?" She ran back to him calling out, with the enthusiasmthatonly a six-year-old can summon, "I did it, Uncle Jess! I did it!"
The way we choose to respond when others make mistakes can cause them tofeel ashamed or can allow them to remember our kindness and share ourstories with future generations. We choose our legacy that gets passeddownto others.
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