She discovered something new in the grocery checkout line

I signed heavily. How is it that whenever I go to the grocery store, I always end up behind the guy with the overloaded cart in the checkout line?

Normally, I kind of enjoy my weekly trips to the grocery store, but with the pandemic in full swing, it’s become an ever more dreaded chore. As I encounter other people in the aisles, faces obscured by masks, I never know if I’m getting too close for comfort as I navigate my cart to grab a jar of mayonnaise, a bag of apples, or a package of hamburger.

And now, here I am, behind this dude with the over-full cart, standing on my social distancing dot.

“Sorry I have so much,” he says to the checkout clerk. “This is the first day off I’ve had in three weeks.”

“What do you do?” the clerk asks.

“I’m in construction,” he answers. “You wouldn’t think construction makes you an essential worker, but it does. I got this one day off, so I’m stocking up. Don’t know when I’ll get another one!”

After hearing his words, I looked closer. On his feet were thick, steel-toed boots, broken-in. His hands were clean and worn. He turned to see me watching him.

“Sorry I’m taking so long,” he said.

“No worries,” I said. “Sounds like they’ve got you working hard.”

“Yup!” he replied.

And although I couldn’t see behind his mask, I could feel a smile. I could hear something else in his voice. I heard cheer. He was cheerful.

My heart softened then. I offered up a quick, heart-felt prayer in the checkout line at that moment; for this man in front of me, and for every person on the front lines of this pandemic who is working hour upon hour, day upon day, and week upon week.

I then looked a little more carefully at all the people standing around me.

All of us are masked-up, going through the mundane routine of buying food for our families so we can get home, take off our masks and be real humans again. The only parts of our faces distinguishing us as humans in these lines right now are our eyes, peering out from the tops of our masks.

St. Theresa of Avila observed, “Christ has no body on earth now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet. ... You are Christ’s body.”

Looking around, I remembered what I had forgotten. Behind every mask there lives a person who, like me, warms at being seen through the light of compassion.

I can choose to see anyone through this light at any place and at any time—even in the grocery store checkout line.