Blowing Kisses

Thursday evening I went for a walk in my daughter's neighborhood with a friend, my daughter and her dog.  

My friend and I had plastic bags and rubber gloves on and were picking up trash as we slowly walked along the city streets and through the park.  

We were passing a house with several people sitting on the front porch, perhaps a mother, a father and a couple of young children.  The father was bent over and had his head in his hands.  Mom had a somber look on her face and seemed to be staring blankly above our heads, and the two children looked like they were longing for something.  The sound of a dog barking was coming from within the house as we were passing. 

The screen door opened and another woman, perhaps the grandmother, walked out and apologized to us for the dog barking inside, to which we responded with kind assurance that we were not concerned.  She then proceeded to tell us how beautiful my daughter’s dog was.  

I was already sending silent blessings to them all, but here was my opportunity to actually say something out loud.  So I looked at the grandmother and said, “YOU are beautiful!”  Feeling now the attention of the children, I looked at them and said, “You are ALL beautiful!”  And as I said this, everyone lightened up!  The grandmother, mother, father and children were all looking at me with big beautiful smiles.  And as we continued to slowly pass by their house, I blew kisses to the children and they blew kisses back.