That Yankees game I attended a few weeks ago with my grandfather was, I think, the hottest game I have ever sat through. We were sitting behind home plate, up about twenty rows. Normally my grandfather’s seats are along the first base line up under a large awning, but on that day, we sat directly in the sun.
It was so hot it was like an old Western where you see the hero staggering across a desert landscape, beaten down by a sun whose intense heat makes the air shimmer like water.
I had not dressed for the sun. I had dressed for the shade and so it didn’t take very long for me to start feeling very uncomfortable. I didn’t want to complain though because being at the game with my grandfather meant so much to me.
But as the sun moved across the sky, I could swear I could hear my face sizzling as I slowly roasted.
It was hot for my grandfather too and I worried about him as he’s eighty-nine years old.
The game was well into the second inning when a couple, a man and a woman joined us in our row. Though their seats were a few down from us, the woman made a point of walking to my grandfather and introducing herself.
I think her name was Elsie.
She asked him how he was doing and she smiled as if finding him in this row was the highlight of her day.
My grandfather didn’t know quite what to make of her and after a minute, she took her seat next to her husband. She didn’t say another word the rest of the game, but when we stood up to leave in the eighth inning, she stood up too, patted my grandfather on his shoulder and told him how glad she was that he had made it to the game.
And then, and I’m still not sure why I did this, I took her hand, squeezed it and said, “Thank you.”
She smiled at me and that was last time I saw her.
There is a part of me that thinks she was an angel. There is a part of me that knows she was. And there is still another part of me that thinks my experience with her is just one of many such experiences I’ve shared since joining Hope last year.
On Sunday I wrote how people are such a blessing to me. Not just my friends, but even strangers.
There was a time in my life when I was so shy I was terrified to look anyone in the eye. I usually wound up staring somewhere out over their left shoulder which I imagine was a little disconcerting to them.
I’ve trained myself over the years, forced myself, to look people in the eye, but only in the past year have I realized the gift of eye contact.
When I look at people now … I see love.
Over the past year, I’ve come to see the various different people I’ve met as lost members of my family.
But last night, I realized suddenly, they weren’t the ones who were lost. I was the lost one.
And now I’ve come home and now when people look at me, I see what they see. To them I am their sister, their daughter, their granddaughter home for the holidays. And they seem so relieved that I made it safely and so happy that I’ve decided to come home.
I don’t know who that woman was at the baseball game that day, but she looked at me with that same look, like she knew me and was so happy to know me.
I don’t know if that makes her an angel or just a very nice lady.
But she’s not an exception in my life. Because I meet someone like her, it seems every day.
Some days it seems as though the world is welcoming me home.
