A Woman Named "B"

Her names is "B." Really. That's how she introduced herself, saying B and using hand quotes to emphasize the initial that stands for her name. And that's all I know about her. Except that yesterday, while vacationing in Florida, she took an excursion to Captiva (the land of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Gifts from the Sea) and brought back five extraordinary shells she'd found in the ocean. By the resort style pool, I watched as she showed off her cache to a friend,  large gray black shells laced with color, barnacles still attached. Walking by I commented on their beauty and she showed each one to me with pride and wonder. That was it. We both went about our day, vacationing in Paradise (or close to it given recent New England snow storms).

As my husband and I were leaving the pool for the day, "B" and I walked by each other and I told her to enjoy her beautiful shells. She stopped, smiled, reached into her bag and handed one to me.  "I want you to have it," she said.

"I couldn't," I replied.

But she insisted and so I took it,  telling her in this spontaneous act of sharing, she was inviting abundance into her life.

"I love giving to others," she told me. "Enjoy it."

I walked away with the shell, which will grace my home and remind me of a warm winter day in Florida and the brilliant full moon that came with the evening sky. A gift from the sea. A gift from a stranger named "B" who understands that what we put out into the universe we will have returned to us. And that sometimes the "return" is simply the good feeling of having reached out to a stranger.