I should forgive myself. After all, it was two days before Thanksgiving. I had things on my mind. What to bring to the neighbors…who hadn’t I reached out to yet…and how would a particular, personal burden resolve…or would it? And so, I struggled at the self checkout with weighing the green beans and trying to find the code for the lone parsnip I just had to have to round out that night’s vegetable medley. It wasn’t going well. Glancing at the line forming behind me, I imagined each anonymous face and easily conjured their annoyance: Come ON, lady. It’s SELF CHECKOUT and you only have two items. Could you please get on with it?
Well, apparently, I couldn’t.
And it was at that precise moment that I noticed the woman at the head of that serpentine line. She didn’t seem in the least annoyed. It was more like she was just going with the flow. Because finding a barcode on a vegetable couldn’t hold a candle to noticing a fashion moment, I engaged:
Oh wow, did you get those PJs from Soma? I just bought the same ones, on sale!
Honestly, I don’t know, my grandma bought them for me last year when I was in the hospital.
The young employee responsible for getting the self checkout folks like me through the line politely interrupted:
Ma’am, the parsnip? It’s $1.25.
Oh yeah, that’s great. Thanks.
I gathered my beans and my parsnip, snatched my receipt, quickly thanked the employee and headed out.
It was only when I was cruising down the road towards home that those few moments flashed back to me. In the few minutes it took me to get there, I realized with a sunken heart that I could have made something different of the whole thing. I thought about that woman, much younger than me, in those familiar PJs. Her hair was very short, and she was wearing fluffy slippers or something equally comfortable. I had no idea what her hospitalization was about or what she might have been struggling with in the present. But, I do know that I wish I had had the presence of mind to be there with her – stranger to stranger – in the moment. I realized that it might have gone like this:
Oh wow, did you get those PJs from Soma? I just bought the same ones, on sale!
Honestly, I don’t know, my grandma bought them for me last year, when I was in the hospital.
Aww, how sweet. I hope things are going okay for you now.
Why is it that we seem to know the “right” or better things to say long after the moment has passed? It kills me, and it happens more than I like to admit.
Being there for people, in a caring way – whether we know them or not – matters to me. It matters to many of us. We don’t always have the “right” words, but our intentions are sincere and that’s what others pick up on. I realized, after the fact, that “being present” this year means paying as much or more attention to the people and emotions around me as it does to the problem or parsnip in front of me.
