You Can Share the Faith. Karen Edmisten

ready to grant my wish. She offered me a blanket as she glowed with good cheer.

      “Isn’t it wonderful?” she chirped. “I love a crisp morning!”

      I am equal parts not a morning person and not a cold-weather person, so I was tempted to cock an eyebrow and snort that “crisp” didn’t describe the numbness in my toes. However, though I’m not a morning/cold-weather person, I am a polite one. I wrapped the much-appreciated blanket around my shivering two-year-old and thanked this sweet woman for whom I was very grateful.

      I introduced myself, or maybe she introduced herself. We started chatting. Our daughters, it turned out, were on the same team. Her daughter, Laura, and my daughter, Lizzy, had already hit it off. Rose was a stay-at-home mom. So was I. We grabbed coffee from the concession stand and talked nonstop. Rose was delightful, sweet, intelligent. I was lucky to have been in need of a morning person’s extra blanket that day.

      It wasn’t until we had gotten together a couple more times that we discovered we were both home-schooling moms. I thought Rose would fit in perfectly with some of my other friends, especially the moms in my Catholic home-schooling group. Except Rose wasn’t Catholic. No problem. I looked for activities that our children could do together.

      What struck me about Rose was just how kind she was. She was also thoughtful, generous, respectful of everyone she met, and sensitive to the feelings of all those around her. She had a habit of referring to her favorite things as “Magical!” And when Rose said something was “Magical!” she had a way of making me believe it, too. Magic, in some form, always seemed perched on Rose’s shoulder.