What Can You Say....

Every once in a while, we happen upon someone who touches our emotions in a way we don't expect strangers to do. A seemingly normal woman, 70ish, 80ish, entered my store looking over assorted cooking paraphernalia.

"Hi, how are you? What can I help you with today?"

"Well, I'm looking for a coffee cup that's not too heavy. Not one of those porcelain ones. Those get too heavy when you add coffee."

"Okay, so you're looking for maybe a plastic or melamine cup?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Right this way, we have a small selection of those, not too many restaurants request that, but we have some that we sell by the each. Here we are, but I'm afraid these we have are not the most fashionable of colors."

"Oh, The colors don't matter much, as long as they're not too heavy."

By now, I've noticed the not-quite-straight fingers signalling arthritic digits. I've also noticed a slight down-trodden attitude from this amiable, but sullen woman. Wanting to fill the silence that has intruded, I probe for a talking point.

"Have you visited our store before?"

"Oh yes, I've been here 3 or 4 times before with my late husband. He absolutely loved to cook. It was his passion. He could shop for pots and pans for hours, but not me. This was his world, and I only came because he loved it so."

"So he was the cook in the family?"

"Definately, I hardly boiled water, but he spent many hours cooking for us and for friends and family. I have so many big pots and pans, I don't know what to do with them. I don't use them, and I can't handle them very well either."

At this point, she was getting semi-emotional, which was getting me big time. It was obviously a fairly recent loss, but she remained fairly composed. I blathered on a bit about how I love to cook, and how many pans I have also, blah..blah...blah. What I wanted to do was to hug this poor woman who was missing her late husband so much. The store had no pull for her beyond it's magnetic pull for her deceased spouse.

She was looking over these salmon-colored melamine coffee cups we had that had probably been there since Madonna was a virgin. They had a riduculously high price on them, and she said that they were more than she had planned on. She probably didn't need them, but wanted something from the place her husband felt so at home.

"Let me look these up on the computer. I can probably get you a better price than that, they look like we've had them awhile." (Probably from when I still had a full head of hair)

She started talking more about her late husband, how much he loved to cook, and how she never got that involved with that aspect of his life. I stood there, trying to respond to her small talk, trying not to get too involved, all to no avail.

Although I didn't ask, her loss must have been recent, and I felt the deepness of her emptiness. It really touched something within me, and I had a hard time not succombing to my feelings. She truly exuded that much pain and loneliness.

I only wish there will be someone who feels that way about me someday. And I wanted to tell her how lucky she truly was.