A desperate San Diego single mom needed help to feed her family. Thankfully, a generous man offered to pay her grocery bill, which amounted to more than $200. The San Diego woman, Jamie-Lynne Knighten, wanted to thank her chivalrous hero Matthew Jackson after he paid her grocery bill at the local Trader Joe’s grocery store after her credit card was repeatedly denied following an anti-fraud block from the card company.
Knighten was frazzled during the situation. Her five-month-old baby boy was crying during the entire transaction. She tried to get her credit card company on the phone to resolve the anti-fraud block but was struggling to get through to a human being as she was bounced around by various automated messages.
Knighten told NBC 7, “(My baby) just was not having it. By the time we got to the checkout, I was done.”
As Knighten struggled to solve her problem and bring home groceries for her family, a stranger stepped forward and saved the day. Jackson was a knight for what he did, which was to offer his own credit card to pay for Knighten’s groceries right then and there. He gave the single mother the thing she needed right then – a generous gift of groceries for a hungry and growing family.
At first, Knighten refused her savior. She was not prepared to accept a stranger’s generosity in front of so many people in the Trader Joe’s line. However, Jackson, 28, was persistent and insisted that the single mother take his money to cover the cost of the groceries. Eventually, Knighten relented and allowed Jackson to foot the large bill. However, his generosity came at the cost of a promise – he asked her to do the same for someone else at some point in her life. She agreed and vowed to do as he told her to do.
The mother of two went home with such gratitude in her heart. Jackson had saved her day and made her life so much easier. Plus, he had helped her out by paying for a week’s worth of groceries for her growing family.
The next day, Knighten called the local LA Fitness Gym, where she remembered Jackson saying he worked. She got the manager on the phone and asked if she could speak to Jackson to thank him for his kindness.
“That’s when (the gym manager, Angela Lavinder,) started crying,” Knighten said to NBC 7.
Lavinder then told Knighten that Jackson had just been killed in a car accident. And the crash had occurred less than twenty-four hours since he had purchased the groceries for the busy mother.
“She said it was Matt and my heart just dropped because he had just passed away,” Knighten told NBC7. “It broke my heart because – what a beautiful person.”
Knighten posted to Facebook, “I still cannot believe it. I thought for sure I would get the chance to see him again, give him a hug, and thank him at least once more in person. Now I won’t get that chance, but more importantly, no one else will get the chance to meet him. And that breaks my heart.”
Knightly is now committing to paying Jackson’s generosity forward. She created social media pages to honor the car crash victim called “Matthews legacy.”