In the spirit of my last post...

I stop some mornings in the coffee shop at the train station--not the big coffee shop at the downtown train station where people sit and drink coffee and eat, but the little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop at the other end of the line, where one person hustles to play cashier to a long line of people with the same train to catch and keep a fresh supply of doughnuts on the counter at the same time.

Most days, that one person is Kitty, and she not only knows most of her customers by name, she remembers their children, their medical problems, their upcoming vacations, and a hundred other little things.

If you've been here before, you probably know that I'm not exactly a warm and fuzzy kind of girl, and so you may be wondering why I'm telling you this.

It's because IT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE. I can tell you that from personal experience, from mornings racing in to the train station and missing the train I was chasing, having run like crazy only to find myself waiting 20 minutes for the next train, rain pouring down, two-block walk from the parking lot, and all the while the health issues I've been fighting for more than a year bubbling under the surface, lacing my rushing and frustration with pounding heart and throbbing temples. On those mornings, I walk in convinced that the day has gone to hell already, that there's no turning it around and it's going to be a long one, and I inevitably walk out of the coffee shop laughing, thankful that I missed the damned train because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have had time for that three minute conversation that turned my mood around.

It's not just me, either. I watch the lines move, the high school students digging for their change while she smiles and talks, heedless of the work piling up for her, the slightly disabled man who needs a lot of help to choose a doughnut and a lot of reassurance that he's chosen the right one--everybody gets the same attention, from the high-powered, self-important businessman to the painfully thin old woman who seems to live at the train station. And virtually everyone reacts to it. It's truly amazing the difference a brief kind word and some personal recognition can make in a person's day, whoever that person might be.

Think about it, the next time you have to make a split-second choice between saying good morning to the doorman and hustling by with your head down, the next time you hesitate for a moment over whether to as the neighbor's son how his baseball game went last night. Thirty seconds invested in someone you barely know might make a difference that carries far beyond your imagination.