THE BENCH THAT STARTED IT ALL

It was just another quiet afternoon. I’d gone to the park for no real reason, just looking for some peace. There was this bench under a big oak tree shaded, kind of out of the way so I sat down with my coffee and let the world move around me. I didn’t expect anything to happen. At first, I didn’t even notice her. She sat at the other end of the bench, pulling out a book, and it was only when she sneezed quiet but kind of sharp—that I glanced over. I smiled, said, "Bless you," and went back to my coffee. But then she said, Thanks. It’s the flowers, I think. Too pretty to stay away from, but they don’t love me back. Something about the way she said it, so matter-of-fact and a little self-deprecating, made me chuckle. "The sacrifices we make for beauty," I replied, half-joking. She looked up from her book and smiled. Exactly. That’s how it started. We talked about the flowers, then about the park, and then somehow about travel. She’d just come back from a trip to Italy, and her stories about the food and the people made me want to book a ticket right there. I told her I’d never been and probably never would, and she just laughed, saying, Never say never. An hour passed, maybe more, and I didn’t even notice. She closed her book, leaned back, and said, It’s funny how you can sit down next to someone and have no idea they’ll make your day better. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just smiled. Before she left, she scribbled something on a napkin her favorite Italian restaurant in the city. f you ever want to feel like you’ve been to Italy without leaving town, go here, she said, handing it to me. I still have that napkin. I went to the restaurant a week later, and while the food was amazing, it wasn’t the same without her sitting across from me, telling me which dishes reminded her of Florence. I never saw her again, but that moment stayed with me. Sometimes, it’s not about how long someone is in your life, but how much they make you see the world differently while they’re there.