What a Relief!

Goodness gravy, I about tackled an 83-year-old man today. Just out of the sheer joy of seeing him again. Peter, my favorite regular at the bakery (I'm not ashamed, everyone knows it), and a man who I call my friend (read more about him here and here) has not come in to the bakery for several weeks now. I have been worried sick. I've asked every one of the other mall walkers if they've seen him, I've asked all of my coworkers if they have. I've even had some of my blog readers ask about him. No one has seen him or heard from him. I knew the Brit had a trip to his homeland planned for this fall, but I knew it wasn't this early. Something had happened. I could just sense it. I have prayed for him often, wondering what was keeping him from his daily morning walk through the halls of the mall and his cup of Columbian coffee with a splash of cream. Of course my mind went to a million different reasons, but I kept telling myself that his good friend who looks after him surely would have let me know if something serious had happened, or (ack!) if he had died. She just would.

So today I was helping a customer and out of the corner of my eye I see an elderly man walk in in a suit coat and dress pants. He slowly walks up to the coffee bar, his back to me, and starts getting out his wallet - an action he's done a million times before. It's Peter!! The familiarity of this scene hits me and I mumble something to the customer as I race across the bar to embrace Peter. I exclaim his name as I hug the heck out of the frail trembling man. He proceeds to tell me about his three week stay in the hospital with pneumonia, being released, then readmitted because he lost 30 pounds in a week. Boy could I see it. He was so frail. So much the same Peter he always has been, yet different. He couldn't hide his exhaustion. His hand shook when he brought the cup of coffee up to his mouth. He had walked from Nordstrom to our store and needed to sit. Usually this man walks two miles with hardly breaking a sweat. He said he had come to the mall the day before to run an errand, but waited until today to come to the bakery because he knew I would be there today. Ugh, it melted my heart. After fixing his coffee the way that he always does, he made his way to the couch to regain his strength before making the trek back home. It brought me such joy to sit with him, hear all about the past several weeks, share with him how much of a scare he gave me, and let him know that he must call me if he has a need for anything. I hugged him again just before he left, receiving a kiss on the cheek.

I'm so glad to have Peter back home. My how I've missed him.