Target coffee shop and foggy vistas

It was an early morning. You know, a real-teacher haunting of around 7:30 and you've already been up since 6. It was foggy on the drive, something I am particularly adverse to given my past with pesky trees and T's in the road, but I had to meet one of my student's mothers. And it was well worth the trip, as she teared up with pride at the awards ceromony and proceeded to clutch his chubby little cheeks in her small hands.

I needed coffee.

I purposefully use the verb need, because at this point, it is the elixir that resurrects most of us. We are just ruins, vacant vestiges before we are aroused by the bean.

As I sat at the Target coffee shop, sipping a Cappuccino, I saw a Hispanic man walk by with a Hispanic downs-syndrome boy. Their interactions were minimal, and the age of the boy was one that couldn't be discerned.

They turned the corner, exiting the grandiose automatic glass doors, and the older man suddenly disappeared behind a column. I bit my lip, at first questioning his actions, moving my head vigorously to find the boy. The boy waited and then, with a smile so electric I nearly yelped in my chair, peeked round the corner and found his father.

It was a moment of the purest delight. Perhaps it was a game they played often, even more so did it touch my heart then, because he found that kind of inconsolable joy with every new start.

I watched as the fog hung low, gripping the cars in the parking lot, possessing the morning, but the man just grabbed his sons hand, and they walked, smiling into the mist.

And it was nothing more than a trip to Target, on a Wednesday morning, at 8:23.