Monday, the wheelchair pusher absolutely deserved a handknit hat and it didn’t even occur to me till a moment too late. They were in the rollaboard anyway–oh wait.

The crowd was closing in behind me.

Climbing up into the bus to return to the car rental (every bag present and accounted for this time), there was a snowstorm on its way in and it was even colder than the week before.

The driver’s head was bare. Not even a ‘fro for warmth, just that last close-cropped bit left behind his ears. He was 55-ish.

I stopped at the top of the steps and looked in his eyes and asked him with the intensity of a grandma, Are you cold?

He was surprised.

I whipped the deep green Mecha beanie right off my head, my hair going all electric socket: “I have another hat in my purse.”

The warmest smile entirely took over his deep brown face. The words were a simple, “I’m okay, thanks,” but spoken in what felt like a magical moment of deep appreciation both ways:

You are seen. You matter to me. Take good care of yourself. Go have a wonderful, wonderful life and maybe we’ll even meet again.

Mathias made me a necklace. It was somewhat short (not a choker though) and it was a string of letters and metal squares and silvery beads and quite charming, I mean, isn’t that just the most perfect Grammy present?

I rolled the letter beads around and around, trying to figure out which ones were intended to face outwards; what did it say?

A quiet aside and I got it: he’d picked the letters that looked the prettiest. (He’s in kindergarten and apparently has some favorites, which I assume means all the ones in his name.)

His auntie did the clasp in back for me and I wore it proudly the rest of the day.

Come our bedtime, I asked her if she could undo that for me.

She did–and standing in her sister’s kitchen with us trying to be very quiet and not wake up the kids, the thing gave way and all those metal beads and plastic beads went clattering and bouncing and scattering across the tile floor and–all his happy anticipation and work! Oh no!

Oh that’s just how those are, my son-in-law told me later; Sam has a whole big kit of those for the kids to play with and when you take them off they do that.

I guess you have to carefully hold both sides once you open the clasp. It needs an end ring bigger than the beads’ openings. Which apparently is in the kit, but, oops.

My random loose beads and chain came home snapped into a hearing aid container, ready for me to find the prettiest order to put them back together in. I want him to see me wearing it next time we videochat.

I hope he doesn’t mind or notice that the order will be all mixed up. I’ll try to make it look pretty.