A mother shared a sweet yet heartbreaking encounter with a stranger while shopping. The woman gets emotional while recalling the unexpected moment while at the store. The situation she describes is so sweet and is likely to bring a tear or two or three to your eyes. Make sure you have the tissues nearby while listening to her encounter with a stranger.

As every parent knows and understands, children do not stay little for long. One minute, they are newborns, dependent on their parents for everything. Next, they are learning to crawl, walk and get into everything in their eyesight and within their reach. Blink again, and they are off to school, ready to start their scholastic adventures.

Sadly, if you blink again, they are packing up their vehicles and backing out of your driveway to start a life of their own. You stand waving, trying to keep a brave face, but inside, you are a wreck, desperately wishing they were still toddlers getting into everything in your house.

In a clip posted on social media, a mother shopping with her children and husband is made aware of how quickly children grow up by a stranger in the store.

“This lady came up to us the other day in Costco, while we were shopping, and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, your kids are so cute! How old are they? What are their names?’ she said. “And she was telling us how she had kids really close together, too.”

Throughout the encounter, the mother said she noticed the other woman staring at her children with a sad look. The woman then made a statement that every parent with grown children has likely thought or said before.

“But she said to us, she was like, ‘I’d give anything to go back to that for a day,’” she said. “And I didn’t know what to say; I got so sad.”

But then, as the woman was walking away from the couple and their children, she turned away one more time to look at the children and started crying.

Children are not small for long. Once those moments pass, their childhood is over; they are gone forever.

Proverbs 22:6 “If a child is trained up in the right way, even when he is old he will not be turned away from it.”