This week's blessing is a small-town moment that has become part of my daughter's Christmas present

One day in the summer, we wandered the Brass Mill Center while Sears replaced my tires. We stopped at Michael's jewelers to browse the very beautiful rings and necklaces. We stopped at the opals, my daughter's birth stone, because there were so many beautiful shades of the stone there in the most beautiful of settings. The saleswoman there had all the time in the world for us then and offered to show us everything as she told us about the stones and the settings and her daughter. (It goes that way with women.) This happens on quiet summer mornings sometimes.

Two weeks ago, I was shopping in that mall with a friend, and we stopped at Michael's so I could get my daughter the earrings she liked the best. The store was mobbed with Christmas shoppers, and nobody had a spare second for small talk, to say the least. Nevertheless, while a saleswoman was wrapping up the opal earrings for me, the woman who had shown us the opals in August stopped to say to me, "Did you come back for your daughter's earrings?"


I felt warm and happy inside, like the most important customer who ever walked through Michael's, as I tucked away my $100-earrings for my girl. It felt good to be there.

Waterbury: poor and dirty little city or lovely little town? Yeah. And I love it.

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