Stranger makes my day

I was standing in line for the salad bar at the church dinner tonight and the woman in front of me turned around looked at me for a split second and her eyes lit up and she said, "Well, hello!" Thinking I must have met her before or something I smiled right back and gave her a cheery "Hello!" She said, "My, you are just beautiful! You have great eyes." and then she simply turned around and started fixing her salad.

For a split second I was taken aback. Not embarrassed, but sorta shocked. It was a strange incident. However, it appeared to be so sincere that I felt good inside and walked a little bit taller and smiled a bit more. It made my day.

I can probably count on my hand how many times a stranger has told me something like that. My hubby says it a lot and friends will tell you that you look great when you are dressed up to go out or wearing something new or different. But it is not common for me to hear a compliment like this one from a complete stranger.

I remember once in High School some random parent at a track meet told me I had great skin. The look on my face must have been something as I had never in my life heard anyone tell me that. But I never forgot it and started to believe I really did have great skin! The second person in my life to ever tell me that was my husband the first day I met him. He also thought I had nice elbows . . . Elbows????

Incidents such as the one tonight remind me of an episode of Oprah I watched. She told the story how a wife of a politician visited her hometown and as she was greeting the crowd she paid Oprah a compliment on her beauty. Oprah never has forgotten that and it contributed to her self-esteem and completely affected her life. Oprah had the woman on her show and she of course did not remember paying that compliment to Oprah many years ago but was gratefully that she had such a profound affect on her.

So I would like to thank the lady who paid me such a wonderful compliment. You are an angel. And you hit me on a day that wasn't going the greatest. I looked at myself in the mirror when I got home and saw a pale tired face with dark circles. Maybe you saw that too and thought if you told me the opposite of what you saw it would help me feel better. Well, if that is true it sure did. WHile standing in front of the mirror I closed my eyes for a few seconds, opened them back up and smiled. There, now that must be who she saw!