I dropped my stunning youngest daughter off for her first formal dance without her father, and went off to Caribou with my laptop. I checked in with all my "people" on Facebook, played with my camera for a minute (checking those pictures I just took of stunning daughter), and settled in to edit some pending blog posts. Sadly neglecting this little corner of the internet, I am.
An elderly gentleman sat in the chair next to me, and we nodded at each other. He seemed somehow familiar to me, and as I watched him chat for a moment with a young college-aged man I got even more drawn to listening what he had to say, and felt a gentle nudge, the nudges I believe to be from God's gentle heart and hand "Heather, put the technology down and talk to him." I thought that we might have a brief coffee-shop chat and in 10 or 20 minutes I would be back to my writing.
I introduced myself a few times over the course of the evening, and in our 2+ hour visit, I never did learn his name. I did learn about the history of our city, the history of the Cadillac, and how very important it is to just stop, set aside our "need" to be plugged in and not necessarily just gather the stories the elderly can share with us, but simply to listen when they speak, to pay attention to what was very clearly this particular gentleman's loneliness.
My little corner of the internet will be there for quite a while, I'm sure. Opportunities like that don't present themselves with anything like frequency. I am grateful for it, and glad to have listened.
