Humanity, Clean Up on Aisle 3...

Sometimes, hope shows up in the most ordinary places.

“If we want a better country, we have to start by being better to each other.”

I don’t think that’s naïve. And I don’t think I’m the only one who still believes it.

I think many of us are simply the quieter voices — the ones who go about our days holding doors for strangers, saying hello whether we know someone or not, and offering a smile just because it feels good to brighten another person’s moment.

The truth is, as a deeply empathetic neurodivergent person, I’ve had my own doubts creeping in lately — real, aching doubts about whether people still see each other. Whether kindness and connection still live underneath all the noise.

A few weeks ago, I had one of those encounters that stopped me in my tracks. A man — linebacker-sized, maybe 6’5”, with kind eyes and his emotions worn openly — was walking down the grocery aisle toward me. I could feel the distress radiating off him in waves. Our eyes met, and in that instant, it felt like he was silently asking: “Is there still any humanity out there?”

What struck me was that I had been wondering the very same thing.

We started talking — of all things — about shredded cheese. How the “sale” price this week was the same as last week, only now the “regular” price had doubled. He said he could afford it, but what about the people who couldn’t? Those living paycheck to paycheck, or already falling behind.

His watery eyes triggered mine. We stood there for a moment, silently shaking our heads. Then he said, “Thank you.” We fist-bumped — two strangers acknowledging something real in the middle of a Safeway aisle. But I couldn’t leave it at that. I gently placed my hand on his back and said softly, “I’m so sorry.”

He looked at me, surprised, and asked, “Oh, so you’re okay with touch?”

I smiled back. “You got me. I’m a hugger.”

And so we hugged — a 6’5” Black man and a 5’7” white woman in a “Namaste” T-shirt — two people who, if we’d let the news or stereotypes dictate, might have stayed guarded, passed each other by, and quietly wondered if the other was “safe.” Instead, we saw each other. Human to human.

Our thank-yous carried far more than the words themselves. Thank you for stopping. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for not letting the noise tell us who to fear. Thank you for trusting.

Over the overpriced Mexican cheese blend and a small bag of wild rice, we broke through the disconnect that’s crept into everyday life. For a moment, we weren’t strangers in a divided country. We were just two people navigating the same grocery aisle — both carrying doubts about humanity, and both finding proof, in each other, that it’s still there.

I left that day with a small but steady spark of hope — hope that everyday people in this country are still moving through their lives with decency and humanity. The cruelty, mockery, and performative outrage we see amplified across social media, blared through the news, and too often elevated to power — that’s not the whole story.

In fact, I believe more and more that those voices are the minority. Not ours.

Small moments like this matter. Maybe more than we realize.

Go Gently (and with empathy),

Suzanne