A good companion shortens the longest road. -- Turkish Proverb
"What do you want to eat?" my wife asked. "I don't know; what do you want?" I responded. "It doesn't matter," she said.
It was our usual late-afternoon conversation. We eventually settled on K&W cafeteria. "I'll meet you there at 5:30," I told her. What was unusual, however, was another conversation with a K&W regular, a familiar face, but someone we didn't know.
After walking through the serving line and finding a table, we ate and talked, catching up on the activities of the day. We laughed at something one of us said and observed people as they moved about the cafeteria. One woman stood out in the crowd. It was her attire and flashing accessories that captured our attention. She wore a necklace with multi-colored, blinking lights, complimented by a red holiday sweater. She was a live, walking Christmas tree. And she was proud of it.
Another patron stopped by our table to share a comment after finishing her meal. It appeared to be a spur-of-the-moment decision. I don't remember what she said initially, but the conversation was engaging. The 83-year-old, white-haired woman kept us laughing, as we attempted to finish our meal. She was genuinely interesting, and she spoke from the heart. She introduced herself as Annie Lee Boone.
Standing beside our table, with a napkin in one hand, her coat draped over one arm, she opened up and a flood of words rolled out. As she talked, she would touch one of us lightly, or make an important point with her hand, puncturing the air. Our eyes connected as she shared a little about her life story. We listened and asked questions.
I don't know when the transition took place, but in a matter of seconds, Annie was talking about her formative years, growing up in the Methodist Children's Home with her younger brother. Her father died suddenly when she was 5 years old. The Children's Home was the best place for her to be, she said. She has great memories of living there and of the man she met there and later married.
The young man, four years her senior, would later leave and join the military. They stayed in touch, exchanging letters. He wrote more than she did, she said. She was smitten when he returned. It was something about that good-looking man in uniform, she told us. Soon they would be off to South Carolina to wed. They were married for more than 55 years. He is deceased, as is the wife of Annie's friend, Ray, whom she eats with now. They enjoy talking and sitting in the bookstore, reading.
My wife and I noticed earlier that she was eating solo on this evening. That was out of the ordinary; she is always with Ray. They are an item. Ray is a dapper dresser, usually decked out in a sport jacket, tie and cap, occasionally a scarf around his neck. They usually arrive together and proceed to a table with slow, measured steps, talking to friends or acquaintances along the way.
Ray is 88, and he was not joining her for dinner, we learned, because he suffered a fall and had injured his shoulder and arm. Annie misses her friend. You could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.
Three days later, we were back at K&W and so was Annie Lee Boone. "I was just talking about you all," she said excitedly. It was as if our conversation had only paused for a moment, since Friday.
■ Nigel Alston is a Dale Carnegie trainer and motivational speaker who lives in Winston-Salem. He can be reached at nalston1@triad.rr.com.
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