At the supermarket a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of having a darling older gentleman with white hair and heavy-looking glasses as the bagger in my checkout lane.  I was in a super rush through the market, preparing to host a ladies night for the gals on our floor in the building.

I was picking up lots of last-minute snacks – brie, bread, crackers, veggies and mmmm, Dalmatia fig spread.  I can’t get enough of this stuff.  It’s basically delicious with everything.  Anyway.

The gentleman bagger was sorting items to place in the bags and he picked up the fig spread.  I was swiping my loyalty card and making small talk with the cashier.

“How do you like this?”  he asked me.

“Oh, the fig spread?  I love it,”  I said.  He was just really friendly looking and I was touched by his interest in my groceries.

“You know, my mother, when she was a little girl, she lived in a house with a fig tree in the backyard.  And she just loved eating those figs off the tree.  She just loved it.”

I wondered where this conversation was going…or even if it was a conversation.

“I wonder if she’d like this,” he said, looking at the spread.  ”You know, my mother is in her late nineties.  I may bring her some of this when I see her next.”  He looked sweet while imagining how happy his mother may be if he were to visit her with some fig spread.

I said she would probably love it.  It wouldn’t compare to a fresh fig off a tree in a backyard, but it may just make her day.  I thanked him for bagging and quickly rushed out to my car and drove home to play hostess.

Looking back on this small slice of a day in my life and his, I wish I had taken a moment to breathe and forget about the time ticking away and the ladies coming over for after-dinner wine and nosh.  I wish I’d gone back and bought that man some fig spread for his mother.

But maybe just listening was good enough.