I like to tease. 

I like to approach certain strangers that are near my age, with a smile and some presumptuous humor.  I treat them as though we are familiar and free to be open. 

Now this is after assessing what I think they were like fifty years ago.  Sometimes it backfires, but not often. 

Old people like to talk to old people. LOL 

Some time back I did so with a checker at the grocery store. She is very small in stature, and she looks like she could either be Amish or a wild sixties child. 

I was intrigued. 

So, I opened a conversation and she said she was a very good girl, never got caught up in the promiscuous spirit of the sixties, but she admitted she thought she missed a lot, and wished she would have been freer. 

I, on the other hand, wish I had been better, so I tried to make that point in the short time I had to chat with her. That was about three months ago. 

Today, I found myself in her checker line again so I opened with, 

“So, how is my nearly Amish checker today?” 

She had a perplexed look on her face so I reminded her of our previous conversation, which she remembered and reiterated her lamentations for being “too good.”

 She then asked me what I was like in High School? 

I gave her a brief account of my father’s death when I was a young teen and how my life spiraled down after that until I was 23. 

She remarked, “It’s good you recovered so quickly, my daughter is thirty and has struggled with addiction ever since her father committed suicide when she was seven.”

I have a Great Granddaughter that is seven...... so her news shocked me and I felt a hot flash bolt through my blood, and every hair on my body raised, as my heart broke for her.

The woman in line behind me was patient so I rushed as I continued to give her some love and consolation. 

I’m not certain what I will do now, but I pray the Lord gives me insight what my next step should be. 

As I was about to leave, the woman behind me, about thirty, confided that her father died three years ago from lung cancer. 

Again, we had such a limited time to chat, but I think all three of our hearts are better for those short candid moments.