On listening when it's awkward

It happened in the back of the grocery store. I was simply trying to grab some chicken for company that night. I was an hour behind, frazzled, company was already waiting at the house and supper would be late. Again. One of those situations. You know the kind. I am quite sure I looked the part.

But she was looking for me, I think, for someone, anyone. It really shouldn't have been me. Not that day at that moment when I was consumed with my own shortcomings and guests and busyness.

She shook her head first as I reached across the corner of her mostly empty cart for that chicken. I tried to keep to myself, I did. But I heard her say, "I can't even afford to buy food anymore. How are people supposed to eat?" I get it. I ask that myself with 3 growing kids and a 10-year-old boy-man who needs a full meal at least every hour. (Well, thankfully now he recognizes he doesn't 'need' it like other people who don't have enough. He is a tender soul who often reminds us of our exaggeration. Even when we think we need to eat, we won't starve, he points out. Not unless we do that for a month. Not like in Africa, he says. Truth.)

I nodded and smiled in understanding, placed the chicken in my cart and tried to keep moving. I failed.

I'm not sure I could even begin to explain the extraordinary details this woman poured out to me about her life at that exact and inconvenient moment. Not a moment as in a minute. More like an hour. Right next to the frozen chicken and blocking traffic on a holiday weekend. Smooth it was not. I learned about her husband dying 5 years ago from the medication that has now been recalled. I learned about her house that's been on the market for nearly that long, all about the new deck, the realtors, borrowing even more money for a fence to maybe block the messy neighbors. I saw the desperation in her eyes as they welled up with tears. She leaned in uncomfortably close and told me she does go to the food shelf when she has to, but she doesn't want to tell anyone else because her children don't know how bad things really are. She'd hate to be a burden.  I learned about all her children, their names and her grandchildren's names and hobbies...the time her daughter almost died because of alcohol...how she found sobriety and God...the abuse in her childhood...the very specific timeline of her travels and moves across country to nowhere-ville Minnesota, "right up next to Antarctica", she said, and laughed out loud. And when this woman talked about her husband, I tell you what. Her tired face lit up like Christmas morning. "He wasn't the romantic type," she explained, tearful and quiet. "But he was my partner in life. He never left me. And I loved him."

My heart swelled with admiration, with sadness, with longing. And my eyes filled with tears, too.

There were a few very brief lulls between her rambling thoughts and I tried to close the conversation by checking my phone and the time, remembering everyone waiting for me at home. I turned my grocery cart the other way, as if to slowly wrap it up, offer goodbyes and blessings, move on from this stranger. On to more pressing matters. Like chicken. And company. And glorification of BUSY.

But I couldn't do it. She intrigued me with her earnest outpouring, her vulnerability and honesty. For reasons I won't ever understand, she picked me. At first I was slightly annoyed by this hangup, catching glances from people scooting around us, odd looks, curious looks. They didn't phase her.

"I believe in Life! I believe in God! Don't ever stop praying for your children," she was almost dancing now, "but they all have to learn their own hard way. Even when you think it might kill you!"

Now she had completely captured my attention, disarmed me. And now, of course, she was ready to say goodbye. She introduced herself, even gave me directions to her house. She grabbed my hands, looked straight into my soul, thanked me sweetly for listening, and turned to leave.

And I wept. For what, I'm not positive. In front of the company. And it was good.

* * * * *

I have prayed for eyes to see people, for opportunities outside of my small community of friends to allow these strange and fleeting lives to intersect, for moments that glimmer with purpose. I've prayed that somehow maybe I could make a difference, make the world a little less lonely. And when I didn't genuinely have the desire, I asked for even just the desire for the desire. Sometimes that is all I can honestly offer. I believe the Giver has honored that feeble and fumbling heart request I call prayer. It was answered in an awkward moment, at an awkward time, with a sort of awkward stranger. And I'm fairly confident it wasn't for her benefit, but for my own. One encounter at a time, breaking down the barriers I'm realizing I have erected. Opening the eyes of my heart by paying more attention to those around me, those fragile and divine and messy and beautiful people. Because we're all together in this chaos.

It's all very awkward. The best sort of awkward.

 There are no strangers here; only friends you

 haven't yet met. -- William Butler Yeats

* * * * *

I know I'm not alone. Have you had a similar experience? What did it teach you?