To The Wonderful Maine Lady In The Candle Aisle That Healed My Heartache Without Knowing

Today was one of those days where you don't realize how much you needed a stranger that unexpectedly came into your life, until they did. Have you ever felt like that?

This isn't meant to be a sad story by any means (disclaimer), more just a real story that makes me wonder if anybody else out there can relate. Anybody else who also doesn't live near their family members. Today I was home-sick a little heavier for my parents than I usually am.

Quick back story, my parents both live in New Jersey where I'm from. I've moved all around the U.S. in my twenties chasing the radio dream, trying to work my way up the ladder, which also meant I didn't get to "grow up" essentially around my mom and dad.

Yet still, one of my fondest memories before I set sail for the radio grind after high-school, leaving them empty nested was T.J.Maxx. My mom and I would aimlessly go to our local T.J.Maxx and just look around even though we couldn't buy anything. We'd call it a "mental health trip" that just got us out of the house that I still live by to this day. I mean, I quite literally will tell my friends, "I'm going on a mental health trip to TJ's, I'll be right back". You'll actually hear me say it on the air all the time too.

Anyways, today I went on on of those mental health T.J.Maxx trips and found myself in the candle isle for entirely too long.  I realized I was stuck trying to choose just one to walk away with because my mom was always the one to help me pick out which scent we'd choose for this year's Christmas. As I was zoning out in the aisle sappily wishing my mom was here with me to stick her nose in the top of all the vanilla ones, a lady breaks my daze.

She says to me "Have you seen any cinnamon-pine scented ones over there?" which got me laughing as I started to help her sift through hundreds of candles on the shelf. We got to talking about how candle shopping is very detailed and only the people who get it get it.

We then continued to ask each other to smell the ones we'd find, and ask if the other liked the scent. Before I knew it, I had found a little bit of comfort in this lady whom I've never met before. A sense of wholesomeness came over me as she didn't know she was filling the void of missing my mama duke's candle trips.

Thank you. Thank you to the kind lady whom I never caught her name in the candle isle. Thank you for doing more for me than you even knew you were doing by asking me to help you find a certain sent. Thank you for making me feel a tiny bit of home in T.J.Maxx even though my mom is hundreds of miles away. You made my heart happier today, and you had no idea what you had just done for a stranger as you walked away. Thank you for being kind, you just never know who you could be saving.