When I was about twelve, I headed to a restaurant for dinner with my family. It was winter, and on that night, the wind was really blowing hard.
As my mom and I headed to the restaurant from our car, a girl about my age and her mother came up to us. They asked if we had any spare change. My mom right away asked where they lived. They pointed to an old car in a parking lot across the street. The girl said there were six of them living in that car.
My mom said she had something to do after handing the people a few dollars. She sent me inside the restaurant with my dad and my three siblings （兄弟姐妹）. But she didn't come. Later, I found out she had gone home and put all the food in our cupboards into a few bags. Then, she brought that food over to the car and handed the bags to the family. I wasn't there when that happened, but I can only imagine the joy it brought to those people.
A few days later, when I actually found out about what she had done, I asked her why she helped those people. She told me that they were not lucky. I remember the face of that girl who had asked us for change. She was the same age as me, yet we looked so different.
Here I stood, dressed in almost new clothes, headed to eat in a restaurant and then back home to the bedroom I shared with my younger sister. I remember thinking that the other girl didn't have any food to eat and she was heading back to a cold car shared with five other people.
After painting this picture in my mind, I understood why my mom had done what she did. I will never forget what she did that night, and how she taught me one of the best lessons I ever learned.
