ONE SILVER DOLLAR
By David A. Watson
Once upon a time there was a young boy who didn't have much, but as you will see he had love. He was poor, but he didn't believe it, or more accurately, he would not acknowledge this fact. One morning after getting ready for school, he was told by his mother that there was no money in the house, and that this meant he would need to ask for credit to buy his lunch. He did not want to do this.
Other kids came to school each Monday morning and bought a whole week's ticket, quite often using folding money; it was bad enough that he often had to purchase a "chip" (that is, one day's lunch) using pennies, nickels, and dimes. So he refused. He huffed that he simply wouldn't eat lunch that day.
But his mother knew better. She understood intuitively that nutrition is critical to learning, and that young children should not miss meals. So she swallowed her pride and performed a great and selfless act on that cold and grey morning.
Because the young mother surmised what sophisticated research has only recently proven, she marched down to the school and used her last bit of money to buy food for her child. It seems she had been keeping a lone silver dollar tucked away in a dresser drawer, for just this type of emergency.
The little boy was supremely embarrassed when his mother appeared at his classroom door later that morning. He never mentioned to anyone that she had covertly slipped him the plastic token he could exchange for food. But he also never forgot the love and devotion that motivated a mother to gamble one silver dollar on her son's future. For you see, that seven year old was me.