Let’s steer away for a moment from the usual rants about public policy.

I’ll share with you a moment I had at work today. Maybe you can relate to it.

I work part time for an Amarillo automobile dealer, Street Toyota and Scion. My job is as a customer service concierge, meaning I get to greet folks who bring their vehicles in for service, or perhaps they’re in the middle of purchasing a vehicle. They come to our service area and I get to welcome them and offer refreshments, arrange for transportation, whatever it takes to make them comfortable.

Well, a couple walked into our department today. The husband walked off. I struck up a conversation with his wife.

“You here to get your car serviced?” I asked. She said yes and then told me it was her third or fourth visit to the dealership since she moved here. “Oh, and where did you live before?” I asked. She said Pampa. “What brought you to Amarillo?” I inquired.

“My son got married and he lives here with his wife,” she said. Then she added, “And we’re going to have a grandchild … next June.”

I congratulated her and asked if it was her first. “It’s our first biological grandchild,” she answered.

I couldn’t help myself. I let out a quiet whoop and high-fived her. “Well, I feel your joy,” I said with quite a bit of excitement.

I then launched into my familiar refrain about our own first biological grandchild, our precious Emma Nicole, who just turned 9 months old this past week.

The lady then told me her daughter-in-law brought her 12-year-old daughter into the family. “Well, how about that?” I said, explaining that we received a precious gift of our own when our son married a beautiful girl more than a year ago. I then joked how we inherited two “half-grown, house-broken grandsons” who are now 16 and 11. We shared our joy in having these children in our lives.

It occurred to me quite suddenly as we continued our conversation how amazingly similar our emotions were at that moment. We were sharing almost identical joys, she with the impending birth of her first grandchild and me with our own still-infant first granddaughter moving quickly toward toddlerhood.

This is one of the joys of the job I acquired some four months ago. I get to connect with total strangers in unexpected ways.

It also reminds me in spades of how connected we all can be.