The bathroom was disgusting. Hands down the worst in any restaurant. That always puts me in a bad mood. Always.

We had a long list of things to accomplish as we were dropping my youngest son, Tyler, off for his LAST semester at college. How did this even happen? The little blonde shy kid was now looking over at me with a beard and a girl friend and talking about his senior art show. I would have been more nostalgic in the moment but that bathroom was still hanging over my head.

FINALLY the waitress appeared. We gave her our drink orders and our burger orders and just for good measure we threw in shakes all around. The next HOUR consisted of forgotten orders, forgotten shakes, no refills on drinks, slow service and lots of waiting.  Did I mention the dirty dining room floor?

When the bill came, we stood up to go pay at the register and my husband pulled out a 20 dollar bill and slid it under his empty glass. I made a face and uttered something along the lines of “WHAT?”

“Don’t you think she deserves it?”

Um. Was he even at the same table? Did he not just mention that his glass was empty and she never brought a refill? Did we not just talk about asking for napkins as our hands had oozing burger goodness all over them and it took FOREVER? Did I not just say that it was the dirtiest place ever and Don had said “I wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse. It would have been clean” and Tyler made a face because he wanted to go to the place that had shakes? Did he not remember all the things?

“No, she doesn’t deserve it!”

Grace.

Sheepishly, I realized what he was doing. Grace.

Tyler said, “Maybe it’s her first day.” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Suddenly the horrendous bathrooms, the dirty floor, the slow service, the incredibly long wait, the pop stained table. . . didn’t matter so much.

A 20 dollar bill said “You are important. We see you. Even though you didn’t do the best job in the world, you are still valued. You are loved.”

I speak a lot about those words. I tell women all the time how important they are. How they are seen. How valuable they are. Loveable. Loved. And I try to show it in a million ways. But sometimes I don’t get it right.

My husband doesn’t use words like that. He just leaves $20 bills to waitresses who are struggling to get it right.

This morning thinking about the petite waitress back in Bourbonnais, Illinois and hoping that she woke up this morning knowing that someone valued her.