People talk to me. Not just friends and family who often turn to me for advice and comfort, but complete and total strangers. Today I stopped into an optical shop to have my eyewear adjusted and found myself in an conversation with the optician, learning that his wife died a few years ago after long suffering with cancer. They were childhood sweethearts. I noticed that he wears two wedding rings, I assume one of them hers. As he worked his craft with my glasses, he told me the story of their last 8 years, battling this demon who eventually won.
I’ve never understood why or how this happens, do I have an aura that shouts out to the world that I’m safe and can somehow offer comfort of some sort…and I wonder, does this serve my life’s mission statement "to make a difference in individual people’s lives" ? Was he in need of someone to listen to his continuing pain today and somehow I was delivered there, to the right place at the right time? The entire interaction was so relaxed and we both seemed perfectly comfortable with the intimacy of this conversation, as if we had known each other for a long time. I left knowing her name, with a potential connection in my life who may have known her as well – someone I can hopefully "remember her" to.
I expect he does not know what a gift he granted to me with his sharing and trust. And what an honor he paid to his wife and partner to share her memory today with a stranger, a new person to carry on her memory in whatever small way I can. I hope that I was able to make a difference in is life as he did in mine today.