Grocery store incident makes me sad

I went grocery shopping today and as I pulled up to the counter with my frozen dinners (insert ramen joke here) I noticed a pair who were buying a couple sixpacks of soda. The lady counted out her coins on the conveyor belt and came up short. She was trying to buy 2 or 3 dollars worth of soda with only change. Finally, the man returned one of their items and they payed for only the other item. I felt an immense sense of sadness at their plight and my own sense of embarrassment if I was in their place. I wanted to offer my own coins, but I only had pennies (no cash) and I didn't know how my gesture would be received. I felt immobilized in indecision, sadness, and embarrassment.

I could empathize with them. Many times while growing up, my family lived below the poverty line. I remember just such a situation happening to us as well. We had poor credit and income. I really don't understand how it worked, but a credit card company issued my parents a credit card only with a $50 limit or even rescinded the card after giving it to us. We headed to the grocery store and loaded up the grocery cart with more food than ever before. But, as we went to buy the food, the credit card wouldn't work. With no other means of paying, we left the cart filled with bagged goods in the store that day and walked out empty-handed.

I wish that people didn't have to feel the strain of lack of money. But, yet today I indentify myself with middle-class America. I have various memories of poverty in childhood, but somehow I don't own them. They are not my own. Like as if they never happened. We had moments of riches, too, when we lived in mansions and held memberships in country clubs. But, I don't own those memories either.

I know that one can choose one's future, but how is it that one selectively chooses one's past?