Angels At Work on the Condiment Aisle

Hey guys!! Sorry for my long absence. I haven't written, but I thought about it & missed you guys, it's just been hard to put words to paper(screen?). But yesterday something really interesting happened to me at the grocery store, & I had to share the story.

I was on a quick break from work & refilling my snack drawer. While going through the store, I saw a very neatly dressed old man looking at the shelves of mayonnaise w/total confusion. There was a bit of rain that morning, & he was wearing his dress cowboy hat, but w/a rain cover over it. I thought "How quaint", like my grandmother always putting on her lipstick & headscarf to go to the market. Anyways, he asked me to help him find light mayonnaise in a square jar, & I did. He thanked me & I started to walk off, but with ninja-like speed he caught me again halfway down the aisle.

He started to talk to me then, & I realized he needed someone to visit with. He told me about his wife of 63 years who was practically an invalid from many health problems, & how hospice had just started to come out to help them (if you're not familiar w/hospice, it is end of life care). She had always taken care of him & done the grocery shopping, & he was as lost in the grocery store as he would have been on the moon. But, it was his turn to take care of her, & he was happy to do it.

I just stood & listened to him sympathetically as the whole story spilled out. Before this I was in a hurry to get back to work & had a million things on my mind, just like everybody else. But when he started talking I realized he was in desperate need, & decided to hell w/work, this was more important. I noticed that he kept touching me, my shoulder twice, the sleeve of my arm, and I realized he was desperate for human contact. I felt such a wave of compassion come over me that when the impulse to hug him came I only hesitated a moment. I grabbed onto him & hugged him--at first I thought he would die of shock, but then he realized what was happening and grabbed onto me too, & started to tremble & choke. I hugged him for maybe a minute straight. He kept saying thank you & trying not to cry. I patted him on the back & told him to hang in there, that it would be okay. Eventually we said goodbye, him thanking me effusively, & then I really did go back to work.

It was quite a feeling to recognize someone's deepest need at that moment, & be able to give it to them. He happened to need a sympathetic ear, someone to pay attention to him, a hug & reminder that everything will be okay. Personally I felt very, VERY blessed to be able to give it to him, & I don't doubt that was the most important thing I did that day, & it probably benefitted me just as much as him.

It's so ironic that people who need love the most are usually the ones we are least inclined to give it to. It's so much easier to love people who already love us, or fluffy puppies and kittens, the very attractive or charming. But the old, the desperately lonely, the sick, the shy, the people who are slightly weird or askew from the rest of the world probably need it much more. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that you start randomly hugging whatever weird person you meet. But, I would suggest this -- why not take five minutes today to really LISTEN to someone else? Set everything else aside for that five minutes: the cell phone, reading, tv, knitting whatever, & really listen completely. We have an epidemic of "quasi-listening" in this country, it drives me crazy. For five minutes really listen to, hear & try to understand someone else. Then, let's see what kind of revolution that starts.

xoxo,
Layla