Owner Sees Crying Elderly Woman Run Out of His Pharmacy and Lose Consciousness at His Feet — Story of the Day

The owner of a pharmacy is shocked when an elderly woman runs out of his door and falls unconscious at his feet, but he becomes angry when he learns the reason why.

Taylor Morgan was whistling as he walked along the pavement, his newspaper under his arm. Yes, he knew it was old-fashioned, but his dad had taken a newspaper to work every morning, and he did too!

Taylor stopped in front of the pharmacy and smiled proudly. The sign read 'Morgan & Morgan.' The pharmacy had been in the family for three generations now, and Taylor was proud of his legacy. And that was when a woman staggered out and collapsed at his feet.

Taylor immediately knelt down by the fallen woman and fumbled for her pulse. It was racing! He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. Then he took the woman's hand in his. "It's OK, help is on the way," he said.

The woman, who appeared to be in her late seventies, was moving her lips, trying to speak. "Medication..." she whispered. She lifted a thin hand in which she grasped an empty flask.

Compassion is the greatest of virtues, and greed the worse vice.

Taylor took it gently from her hand. The label identified the woman as Honoria Field, and the flask had once contained a powerful heart medication, with indications to be taken daily.

"Mrs. Field," Taylor asked gently, "did you take the medication today? We need to tell the paramedics..."

"No..." Mrs. Field whispered through parched lips. "I didn't have..."

At that moment, the ambulance arrived and the paramedics gathered around Mrs. Field. Taylor asked for permission to accompany her to the emergency room and the paramedics agreed.

All the way to the hospital, Mrs. Field held Taylor's hand and told him the whole sad story. She had come to Taylor's pharmacy to fill out the prescription for her heart medication, but when she started to count her money, she discovered she was 20 cents short.

"I told the young man I'd come back tomorrow," Mrs. Field whispered, tears running down her thin cheeks. "But he said I was a sponger. I told him I really needed the pills but he started to scream at me..."

"He screamed at you?" asked Taylor, shocked. "The man in the pharmacy?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Field. "A tall skinny young man with blue glasses. He said some very ugly things..."

By then, they had arrived at the hospital and Mrs. Field was taken in, medicated, and stabilized. Taylor only left after he had a long talk with Mrs. Field's doctor.

"She'll be OK, this time," the doctor said. "The problem is when they skip medication because they can't afford it..."

"Or because someone won't give them a 20-cent discount!" growled Taylor.

The doctor stared at Taylor bewildered. "Discount? I don't think pharmacies give elderly people discounts..."

"They do now!" cried Taylor and marched off. When he walked into his pharmacy, his clerk, Dylan, was happily telling his colleague Rita that he had run off 'another bleeding heart sponger.'

"Can you believe it," Dylan said. "She actually told me she'd die right there! As if I'd believe it!"

"You should have," Taylor interrupted. "Because she nearly did."

"Sir?" asked Dylan, startled. "You don't mean that old relic..."

"That 'old relic' as you call her, Dylan, is a customer and to be treated with respect," Taylor said coldly.

"With all due respect, sIr," said Dylan arrogantly. "Customers are people who pay for their purchases. This woman was a beggar, a sponger trying to scam me with a sob story!"

"The woman was 20 cents short, that was all. She wasn't a scammer, she was a desperate customer asking for your help, and you didn't have the compassion to give her the medication she needed. What you don't understand is that people who come to us need our sympathy as much as they need the medication. You're fired."

"But, please, Mr. Morgan, you know I support my mother who's sick and I have rent to pay and car payments to make!" Dylan whined.

"Mrs. Field is someone's mother and she nearly died today because of your unkindness. All you had to do was put in 20 cents out of your own pocket. I would have refunded you. I think you deserve just as much kindness and understanding as you gave poor Mrs. Field. As far as I can tell, you're just a sponger trying to scam me."

That was Dylan's last day on the job, and Taylor made sure all his employees understood that nothing like that was ever to happen again. He set aside a fund for the elderly who sometimes couldn't afford their medication, and one of them was Honoria Field.

Taylor Morgan went on to start a Foundation and got dozens of pharmacies around the state to donate essential life-saving medicine to a medication bank for pensioners and for the homeless.

What can we learn from this story?

• Compassion is the greatest of virtues, and greed the worse vice. Dylan was willing to let Mrs. Field do without her medication for the sake of 20 cents and ended up losing everything.
• Empathy is being able to place yourself in someone else's shoes and understand their plight. Taylor understood Mrs. Field's desperation, and he made sure she never went through it again.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a young widower who refused to allow his dead wife's family to have contact with her daughter.

This account is inspired by our reader’s story and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life. If you would like to share your story, please send it to info@amomama.com