A Nice Thing That Happened

Lately, I try to set some time aside on Sunday afternoons to go to one of my favorite local coffeeshops to read and write in my journal. I like getting some personal time in to wrap up the weekend.

The other day I was at Lamplighter reading, sitting facing a glass door. There were a handful of other folks in there, clattering away on their laptops and sipping mugs of coffee.

A guy who’d been there sitting next to me stood up, stepped out the glass door and tapped a girl on the shoulder. She’d been sitting at one of the picnic benches outside, facing the other way.

She turned around, looked at the guy, put her hand over her mouth and stood up. Her face lit up. He smiled. They stuck their arms out and hugged for a good four or five seconds — the kind of elongated embrace that’s reserved exclusively for reunions.

I watched this all happen over the top of the page of my book and couldn’t help but smile myself. The two sat down and talked, enthusiastically gesturing and laughing along the way.

I didn’t know them, but it seemed to me that they were friends who hadn’t seen each other in quite a while and clearly weren’t expecting to. Or at least I like to think they were. Regardless their relationship, they shared a heartfelt moment unexpectedly, and it warmed the cockles of my heart.

Eventually, the guy stood back up, they hugged again, and he came back inside.