* Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

Wish you were having as much fun reading these posts as I am by writing them! I am remembering details to the best of my ability. If you were a witness to any of these catastrophes, forgive any incidental mistakes I may have made!

One day, several years ago, Granddaughter Gracie and I were visiting in a nursing home. After our visit was done, we proceeded to walk down the hall toward the exit when we spotted a little lady using a walker slowly coming down the hall toward us. We spoke and it hit me! I think that is Mrs. So & So from Such and Such school. We taught together years ago. I told Gracie we needed to speak to her and turned around.

After stopping her I said, "I don't think you will remember me but we were together at Such and Such school." "Why," she exclaimed, "it is wonderful to see you! I can't believe you remembered me." She was just beaming. We talked and talked about the old days and how school had changed so much. Technology has changed so many things, girls' skirts were too short..Oh, wait we could have been talking about the '60's. Remember?

The conversation was a little strange at moments. I should have had a clue when random statements like, "Yes, I've cut a lot of hair in my time" were thrown into the mix. "But, who knows," I thought, "many teachers go above and beyond the call of duty." Maybe there were boys who needed a haircut and couldn't afford one. But another statement that threw me, was "they used to start coming in around 6 or 6:30 every morning." Wow, now that WAS going beyond the call of duty. She started cutting students' hair at 6 a.m.? Suddenly, the light bulb went off. Uh, oh I had a bad feeling about this. Who was this precious person? I had gotten into this conversation, there was no place to hide. What was I to do? Well, I did what every nitwit who gets themselves into these positions does, I kept right on talking. There was no turning back.

Anyway, we spent a very pleasant few more moments and then Gracie and I were on our way. I caught Gracie's hand and as we walked rapidly to the door she said, "GuGu, who was that lady?" To which I whispered, "Gracie, I have NO idea." Gracie looked perplexed. She cocked her head to the side and said, "Then why did you talk to her?" "Because I thought I knew her," I said.

Gracie smiled and squeezed my hand, "Well, it was real nice of you to pretend you knew her."

I've thought about that exchange several times since then. How many times do we do things just to "be real nice"? Is being "real nice" a thing of the past? No lurking ulterior motive, nothing to be gained. Just trying to make somebody's day a little brighter? Now, I am not suggesting we "pretend" to be nice, but I am saying we all see people in our life (friends or not) who just need a little"nice". So I say, Carpe diem. Go forth and sprinkle some "nice dust" around!

Hope ya'll have a "real nice" day ...

Lessons Learned:
1. As you age you not only forget names, you forget (gasp) faces, too.
2. It's ok, everyone will be at that same point someday, and then they will feel bad for being so impatient with you.
3. You probably won't be around to say "I told you so"... so just laugh to yourself now and KNOW that "what goes around, comes around!"