TheDiscipleMd
I was waiting outside the store as my wife was picking out ‘another’ bracelet from inside Alex and Ani when I spied a young lady and her mother coming out of the store. The young lady was beaming as it was apparent that she had purchased a new bracelet. She was moving it around on her arm as she and her mother walked towards her boyfriend. The young man looked to be in his college years and, in fact, was wearing a local college’s name on his t-shirt. He was on his ‘smart’ phone. As she ran towards him, he didn’t even look up. She had a grin on her face that even penetrated my tough old man skin. She grabbed onto his arm and started talking. He never looked up. His fingers were busy on his phone. It didn’t take long for the young woman’s expression to change, and she quickly turned back towards her mother and started talking. He never looked her way. His phone was ‘smart,’ and apparently, he didn’t want to miss a moment with it.

Within a few moments, the mother and daughter started walking up the street with the young man following while still pecking on his phone. I watched them all the way down the street. The mother and daughter were in rapt conversation as the young man followed a step or two behind, engrossed in his business.

I was watching this while I too had my smartphone in hand. Right then my wife came out. She was smiling and was moving her arm around as the new bracelet picked up the beams of the sunlight. She came towards me with a smile on her face. I put my phone in my pocket and smiled back. It was the smart thing to do! If I hadn’t, I would have missed the flash of her smile when she showed me she had picked out a bracelet with a pink New York Yankees logo dangling, my favorite team.

Fortunately for me, I had learned a ‘smart’ lesson from my young friend just moments before. I left Alex and Ani’s a wiser man and with a rich memory of an exchange between a man and his wife. I will cherish the memory of the look a cute wife gives her man when she knows she has done something to please him. It’s a fleeting look that I could have missed.

I left Alex and Ani’s that day, pondering how many sweet memories I had missed before then and how smart I was to have been so dumb!