prosopagnosia IV

So, getting back to the grocery store:

I stuck out my hand to the man and said, "Thank you! But I'm so bad with faces. Tell me, who is your mother?" It turned out that his mother was the woman I wrote about in Saturday Superlatives a few days ago, whose death had such an effect on me. And the devoted daughter-in-law who cried and held the old woman as she lay dying -- that was his wife. Isn't that an amazing coincidence? I remembered that I had met him at the old woman's bedside a couple weeks before, back when we were still pretending she was going to live forever.

So I took the opportunity to tell him that I thought his mother and his wife were two great women. He smiled in a quiet way and said yeah, he knew that. Meanwhile the teenage kids stood around looking embarrassed. It was a sweet moment. I felt like the guy and I were bonding for life in a really meaningful way.

Now I just have to hope I never see him again -- because I won't recognize him next time either, and that will just be damn awkward.