Small talk led to deep talk, and I listened to a woman, decades my elder, share some events that may have broken me, had God put me in her shoes. Destruction of family land, loss of a child, and an unhappy marriage crumbling after forty years together.

"[T]here are no small things in life, particularly when done with love or compassion."

I remember rain falling that Easter, cool, crystalline drops. I remember racing, laughing, for the patio and shelter; I remember cheap, plastic eggs coloring the yard like wildflowers. Days like today, I can almost hear my grandmother’s soft, ready laughter and taste the slightly melted chocolate of a Hershey bar left too long in the heat.