Tax day. Yep, picked up my stuff from T and got it over to the post office and that's done........for one more year...done. Didn't owe as much as I might have, thanks to T's efforts. Still not my favorite obligation but feel blessed to have the opportunity.

Twice this week I've been stuck in checkout lines. On Tuesday, it was at Linens and Things and on Thursday, it was at Home Depot. Two angry and impatient checkers with their obvious eye-rolls and huffing and setting items down on the conveyor with a tad too much force. Reminded me of MA's experience she wrote about on her blog recently. Witnessing the exchange at LNT was most disturbing. The small older lady in front of me was obviously from a different country. I couldn't quite pin down the dialect....Italian? German? She was trying to pick up an item the store was holding for her and struggling mightily and with more patience than I might have had in her soft voice and broken English to convey this to Moesha, our checker. I was watching dignity, patience and class in this small, timid human form. She had the look of someone who was not unfamiliar with this process or with the impatient, angry response from the retail clerk. Finally, Moesha exploded and yelled across the store to another clerk, "Get over here and talk Spanish to this person!" Two seconds before the timid one spoke to clarify, I jumped back at Moesha with "no espanol' - she's not speaking Spanish!" I caught the scolding tone to my own voice in mid sentence and tried to retreat from it which left my voice strangely fading by sentence end. I was feeling justifyably impatient on her behalf. Yet she inadvertently joined my chorus (purely a matter of timing) protesting that she did not even know Spanish. I had the most interesting mix of feelings but I'm pretty sure than my impatience and irritation with Moesha was my internal shame at the times I have acted just as impatient and rude.

In 1969, my father died as suddenly and unexpectedly as my beloved husband would 36 years later. Speeding to stay up with the siren-screaming red-light-running ambulance in front of me, I had no thought of the drivers I'm sure I must have nearly run over. After Jim died, there were times I would find myself sitting at a red light that had turned green...just sitting there...in some other world. Sometimes the person behind me would angrily honk and it would startle and frighten me. In those days, I had no care of the continuation of my own life. Today I try to be ever patient, knowing now that I don't know the world in which that other person is living.

God, forgive me for those times I've been recklessly rude, impatient, and unthinkingly blunt to anyone, stranger or loved one. With your love in me, I can express kindness even to someone who is not kind to me. When someone doesn't treat me right, help me remember I have a golden opportunity to heal a wounded heart.