A grocery run.
A young couple with a baby girl of about 15 months, absolutely adorable. Proud grandparents. Ukrainian, was my guess, along with the dad who was clearly their son, while the mother of the baby looked to have Californian ancestors going way back.
Sometimes I see too late where my deafness trips me up: it wouldn’t occur to me to begin speaking from behind someone and expect to be paid the least attention to because I wouldn’t hear someone speaking behind me. And so, I brushed the older woman ever so slightly on the arm to get her attention and handed her a particularly cute finger puppet. Whoever the knitter in Peru was, she put a lot of time and color into that bright bird.
“I’m a grandma too,” I smiled, offering it to her–
–while her face and body froze in abject horrified fear. Which did at least lessen to uncertainty when she saw the little toy and then followed my glance towards her beautiful granddaughter.
“Happy Birthday,” I added, still smiling, and got out of their way quickly to make it clear I wasn’t trying to demand anything whatsoever of them.
Her daughter-in-law translated.
Ohhh…!
Next time I glanced their way they were so much more relaxed than even before I’d approached them: smiling, laughing, enjoying this precious time together while the little one is so little, and oh so much better than that initial moment.
Which was such a relief.
And I got to see how much the daughter-in-law rejoiced over being able to make everything okay for her mother-in-law.
They will always have that.