The People You Meet

Most of the time, my shopping trips away from home for groceries or miscellaneous items are done alone, until just recently. My husband has become my “left” foot and has been driving me around until I am back to driving by myself, which should be soon.

He misses out on the Supercenter trips, and he frequently opts out of going with me when I invite him to come along. He has good reason.

I’ve nicknamed our local super store as the Center Social Club. You can all relate, right? The times you have left home about mid-day, dressed in your painting jeans, t-shirt, no makeup and hair looking like you stuck your finger in a light socket are the days when you run into everyone.

Everyone includes the little kids from the Storytime who say, “look Mommy, it’s the liberry lady.”

I’ll smile and say hi quickly, hoping I’ve at least brushed my teeth that morning. Those same days are when you run into almost every pastor in town. Those are the days I’m sure I’ve been added to their prayer list, as “Sister Terri looked a little run down today…” prayers.

That’s okay, though, because can’t we all use those extra little prayers?

So, for the past few weeks, Bob has been cheerfully willing to take me wherever I need to go. Our Walmart trip took twice as long today. I’ve had friends stop by my buggy to offer their sympathy on my recuperating left foot, and later my husband asking me, “who was that?” They seemed to know you pretty well.

I give him my deer in the headlights look, and say to him, “I have no earthly idea,” which works for the moment. About fifteen minutes later, it comes to me. How embarrassing is that?

None of these encounters bother me, unless I’m trying to rush in for one ingredient, and then rush back out to finish a Julia Child recipe or something similar at home.

Like my father, I enjoy people, and I will speak to almost everyone. If I missed you on my last visit, it was because I was still trying to remember who the last person was who came up and hugged me and said how happy they were to see me.

The Center Social Club, aka Walmart, is the place where you catch up on the local news. It is where you exchange photos of those precious grandchildren and discover the kids you used to share Preschool Storytime with have now graduated from high school. It’s a place where you can smile at a little one in the buggy and most of the time receive a great big smile back at you. It’s the place where you discover who has been seriously ill, especially when you wait in the line at the pharmacy. It’s the place where you might run into a friend you haven’t seen in a while and when you ask how they are doing, they might burst into tears because their lives are currently upside down and full of trauma at that very moment.

Those are the times when you can reach out, hug that sweet person, and give them the words of encouragement they might not get from someone else. It’s the place where, if you can reach the top shelf, you can bring down a box of Frosted Flake Cereal and hand it to the petite widow lady and then listen to her story of how long her husband has been gone.

All these “chance” encounters are there for a reason.

All these moments take time out of our day, don’t they? But aren’t they so worth taking the few minutes to share a smile, a hug, or a word of encouragement? It’s all kinds of people we run into from all walks of life, very often strangers we’ve never seen before.

I often wonder if those people are our “angels unaware” persons that our Lord sends our way, testing to see if we really have learned that Sunday School lesson of sharing kindness with others.

And so, my Walmart aka Center Social Club trips take way more time than the quick run in that I promise my husband I will do. By the time I had finally caught up with my husband at the self-checkout lane, he was unloading the contents of the buggy.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help,” I said, kind of feeling a little guilty I had abandoned him. He smiled back and said something I guess I hadn’t really thought of.

“You were helping right where you were needed.”

And that made my heart smile all the more.

-------- You may reach Terri at P O Box 28, Center, Texas 75935 or at btlacher@sbcglobal.net