So, I'm walking out of Trader Joe's with my cart and my turkeys and a grocery cart full of snacks and whatnot, and I'm just about to pass two men walking in. The one guy looks Iranian, like my friend Farah's husband Mahmoud, with closely cut salt and pepper hair and perfectly tailored clothes, about 50ish. He's talking to his friend, who's younger--more my age maybe--and whatever the topic, they are both passionate. Just when our paths are about to cross, the older man turns to me and says, "I'm telling you--there is no love left in this world." "No, no, no!" I said. "That can't be true. Please don't say that." "Do you know that moment," the younger guy says, "when you are just at the bottom of everything and you have a little hope left, but you're not sure if it's going to last? You're not sure it's going to be enough? That," he says, turning to his friend, "is exactly where he's at right now." The older man shrugs in agreement, laughs and turns to go to the store. "Wait, wait a minute." I call back. "Come back. Come here. My whole day is going to be wrecked if we leave it like that." The man turns and walks back to me, until we are standing toe to toe, eye to eye. "Give me your hand," I order him, like a mother insistent. "I'm going to give you a blessing." And like a child knowing it would be foolish to refuse, he puts his hand in mine. I don't know what to say really. But I know that there is no such thing as no Love left in this world. I know that Love is always waiting, whether or not we have the courage to see it, to receive it. I stumble through a few sentences and he takes it, at least a little bit. I figure if all else fails he can always say There was that girl in the Trader Joe's. At least that's something. Now it's my turn to leave, but this time the other guy stops me. "Wait a minute! I need that so much more than he does! You have to say a prayer for me, too. I have to have it." I laugh and smile, since it's probably more like wishing than praying really, but he puts his hand in mine and waits--the way you wait when you're desperate for good news after the worst disaster. The way you wait when you don't have a choice. I feel so helpless and silly, trying to find words that will ease one man's pain. I don't know what to say, I don't even know if what I'm saying is true or not--for him--but I am trying. I want something to make a difference, something that will stay with him long after this day. "Your path is unfolding before you," I tell him. "You cannot see it now, but it's true. All you have to do is take the next step, one step at a time. Open your eyes and receive everything you need. Something so much greater is holding you, I'm sure of it." At this, his eyes fill up a little bit and he nods, trying to take it in. They ask my name and I tell them I'm going home right now to light candles for both of them, that I will be thinking about them both all day. It's the only thing I know how to do, to try to hold that tiny piece of suffering as long as I can, to remember them, to care. On the way home, I call my sister and tell her the whole story. "It's just horrible," I tell her, "to think that right now people are wandering around the grocery story feeling like there's no love left in the world." I sigh. "How many people do you think are feeling like that?" "Um, almost all of them?" She laughs and then she sighs, too. I hope it's not true. I'm the kind of person who has total amnesia about every hard time I've ever had exactly five minutes after it's over. I can be ready to blow my brains out one second and then have a change of heart and feel like everything makes perfect sense the next. I wish I could say I walk around blessing people and that I have faith in humanity and Divine Source even when I feel crummy. But I'm probably more inclined to tell strangers that there is no love left in the world. At the grocery store. In the parking lot. Can you see now why those two men instantly endeared themselves to me? I came home to Moirita singing a little song to herself while her mother, my friend, Lourdes performed miracles on the mess upstairs. I tell Lourdes what happened. "Aye, pobrositos," she says. I tell her how lucky I feel that someone would tell me such things, but she thinks I mean just lucky in general about my life. "Aye." she says, answering me in spanish. "You are one lucky woman." That brings me down to earth, to every kindness, to every privilege I have. I light the candles, first one, than the other, hoping that the man will find the love he needs. That his friend will see his path unfolding before him, and that I will have the eyes to see it for myself, whenever sadness finds me, whenever I fear hope is lost.