You notice a tall, dark, homeless man approaching people at the bus stop for spare change. Everyone before you shakes their head no, most people don’t even look up from their newspapers or magazines. When he gets to you, the last in line, you look him in the eye and smile (you are from the midwest). You pull a fistful of quarters from your pocket — laundry money — there is so much change that he has to cup his hands to receive it all. 

I learned from my grandmother how to be excited. How to be alive. How to sparkle.  
I learned what it looks like to make people feel like they matter.  
I learned that you can listen to the radio all night long and that at midnight when the station goes off the air, the static will be comforting.  

My burrito comes down the line and as I am paying for my food, I notice the cashier looking off behind me while she takes my cash. She is preoccupied and scoops too many chips into the bowl on my red plastic tray. She is transfixed by a man and his ten or eleven year old daughter who looks like she has been crying. 

Buy a plane ticket. Rent a car. Pack warm clothes.

Weep in the airport.

Drive north for an hour and a half. Decide to take the route home around the lake instead of through downtown. Nod to the diner you waitressed (and bussed, and hosted, and dishwashed) at in high school. Turn up the radio. Let the memories flood.