A Surprise Blessing

Yesterday after lunch at Panera Bread, my sisters and I decided to do a little shopping and walked down the sidewalk to Target and then Dress Barn. We were about to leave Dress Barn when another group of women came in. I immediately recognized them as two sisters and a mom from my church. For some reason, unknown even to me, I looked at them, put my finger up to my lips, and said, "Shhhhh...." The mother of the group, who is a bit older than me, got a big smile on her face and did it right back. We all laughed, I called her by name, and hugged this woman who really doesn't know me at all.

At one time MJ home schooled her ten children and sometimes I saw her when we visited her church for Vacation Bible School one week out of the summer. She may have known my name back then, perhaps she would have recognized me, or known that we also have a carload of children and were home schooling, but today she is a different woman from those days. Alzheimer's disease has stolen MJ's memory away. Sometimes she isn't even sure who her own children are, but for a brief moment, there at the door of the Dress Barn, she and I made a connection and I was blessed. I hope that she and her girls were too.