What's in a name?
I drove an almost ninety year old lady to the Gemeinde office in order to sort out some stuff and as I was helping her into the car, her son asked me to please get a few groceries at the Deutsch Schützen shop. Not a problem.
After about a kilometer of driving I suddenly realized that the shop was closed until three. Each and every Wednesday which had escaped from my scaffolding of thoughts. I mentioned this to my passenger and because she needed milk for making pancakes, we decided upon shopping at the Eisenberg shop.
This lady doesn't drive and I figured that to her Eisenberg was foreign and actually a nice change of shopping pace. Marvelous how a mere trip of ten kilometers to the other side is seen as an adventure.
I helped her into the shop and was floored when out of the blue the proprietor came rushing out from behind his counter in order to greet this lady by name and enthusiastically shake her hand. Wow, what a divine gesture. There were about four other shoppers there and they stopped to stare at this while my 'charge ' was beaming from ear to ear while updating him succinctly on decades of family happenings.
A moment later the owner's mum came to the counter and he took the time to make introductions...bear in mind that people change as they age and being recognized is not a given.
When we got back to her home, she was chuffed beyond measure to be able to tell her son at how welcome she was made to feel in Eisenberg...a small thing like being greeted by name has made the world of difference and brightened up someone's day if not week. We should all do it more often.
Biggi
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