I am a Wal-Mart shopper.  That is not stated with any pride whatsoever, simply as a matter of fact.  They occasionally provide everything on my list in one large, expansive, overcrowded, difficult to navigate location.  And they occasionally do not hide the items from me so I can eventually find what I think I need.

On those evenings when I dare to face the crowds and the lines at the checkout, I will enter on the grocery side (always through the entrance doors—my internal regulatory system will not allow me to enter through an exit) and stand briefly surveying the available buggies.  I do not, under any circumstances, want one with a bumpy wheel, and you can never tell if you have one until you get into the store and onto the vinyl tile.  For some reason (probably to provide a more durable, non-skid surface for entry—and  to obscure the fact that you have a bad buggy), the designers of Wal-Mart stores put ceramic tile at every entrance . . . rough, uneven ceramic tile.  So if the buggy bumps and makes that horrible racket that announces your arrival long before you actually arrive, you don’t know until it’s too late.

Actually, I don’t suppose it’s ever really too late.  There have been evenings I’ve made a sharp U-turn once I hit the vinyl and gone back to initiate a buggy exchange.  And there have been evenings I’ve done that more than once . . . or twice.  But I draw the line at three times.  After that I just accept the fact that tonight’s gonna be one of those nights and rattle my way into the store, usually with a buggy that’s worse than the one I started with before swapping.

I just love the way the other Wal-Mart shoppers will turn and look at me as the buggy announces my presence.  I need a sarcasm font here, in case you didn’t catch that.  They never say anything.  They just look at me like, “Couldn’t you have done any better?”  I want to tell them I tried but simply could not find an accommodating buggy that evening, but I never do.  I just lean on it a little harder, hoping that will help (it never does) or try to load it in such a way that perhaps most of the weight is over the offending wheel (which also never helps).  No matter what measures I take, I’m still going to rattle my way through Wal-Mart, being stared at by everyone in the store.

Did you ever stop to think that grieving people are a lot like buggies with bumpy wheels?  Probably not since most people don’t really think like I do, so allow me to explain.  Most of us have trouble responding to someone who has suffered a significant loss, especially if that loss is a child or a spouse.  When they walk into the room, we look at them, but we don’t really know what to say.  What if I say the wrong thing?  What if I make matters worse?  And then we try to pretend that everything is all right and nothing has happened that turned their lives upside down and inside out.  Like the offending buggy with the wheel that’s out of round, their pain is obvious and we can clearly see it, but we choose to remain silent feeling there is nothing we can do.

My response to that response would be this—all you have to do is ask how they are managing, how they are doing—and then listen.  Chances are that’s all they need.  A listening ear and a loving heart go a long way toward smoothing the path of a person in mourning and, although I have yet to be able to fix the broken buggies of Wally World, surely I can overcome my own discomfort and reach out to those in need.

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