Brandy Danner is a librarian specializing in young adult services.
Warm Fuzzies
Friday night, I went grocery shopping. (This sort of activity is important when you like to not starve to death, I find.)
While poking around the bread aisle, looking for croissants (they were out), I ran into a patron’s mom, who happens to work in the bakery section of this particular store. The patron in question is one of my favorite kids—she’s smart, funny, very helpful, and, well, very chatty. But the sweetest 12-year-old you could hope to meet, and whenever she’s in, we end up talking for a while—half-hour, forty-five minutes, sometimes even an hour, when it’s not busy.
Anyway, her mom said hello, and that she’d been hoping to see me. She wanted to tell me how glad she is that her daughter (T) has someplace safe to go, with people who like seeing her. And that she’s glad that T has me to talk to, because it’s just T and her little brother at home and she doesn’t have many close friends or relatives—so Mom’s very happy that T likes me and can talk to me. “You’re like . . . a big sister to her. I’m so glad that she has someone like you to talk to.”
I’ve been living off the glow of this pretty much all weekend. I’m touched, really, and giddy with the knowledge that someone really appreciates me, and the work I do here. Conversations like that one really do make the everyday aggravations matter so, so little.
