The Kindness of Strangers

It was an awkward situation. I didn’t want to have a conversation with this woman and I don’t even know why she was talking to me to begin with. Maybe she was feeling lonely and needed someone to talk to. Maybe I appeared to look the same while quietly trying to hide the fact that I was crying. I hate being vulnerable, yet I am increasingly finding myself in that position. What was making me cry you ask? She asked the same question. Her words were gentle and felt like home. I clenched my jaw, wiped my eyes and drew in a long breath. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I was trying not to bawl my eyes out in front of a complete stranger. She stood there patiently waiting for me to collect myself and swallow the lump in my throat. Her eyes were kind and encompassed the wisdom and experience of her years. She handed me a tissue as I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt. I wanted to hug her and sob for all the things that were playing bumper cars in my head. But looking at her, with all of her poise and grace, I was embarrassed. I’m not a person who is easily embarrassed, and I know that it was not her intent to do so, but I was embarrassed that she had stumbled upon me having a very private moment in a very public place. She stood there holding the tissue in her tiny wrinkled hand and it took everything I had to reach out and accept it from her. She turned her attention to her hand bag and its contents while I wiped my nose. Her tissue smelled like peppermints and hand cream and she turned back to me with a small package that she recovered from her briefcase sized purse. It was more tissue and I greedily accepted it. When I was done blowing my nose and wiping tear tracks off of my face, I turned back to meet her eyes. We stood there for a few moments, just looking at each other and then she raised that tiny wrinkled hand to my cheek.
She spoke softly and said “my dear, without the rain, the flowers can’t grow” and gave me a kind smile.
My eyes welled up again and I managed to whisper thank you as she turned and walked away.