Being Nice in a Coma

I did a garage sale with a good friend last weekend.  It was Purgeville x 2, and she lives in the greatest location ever to attract people.  As always with such events, people of all genres floated in and out - some chatty, some silent.  One woman in particular seemed familiar to me, but I didn't say the standard 'do I know you from somewhere?' because people say it to me all the time, and I rarely actually know them.  Apparently, I have the universal face.  (I wonder if the rest of my clones are growing these funky age spots on their cheeks, and if they know how to get rid of them).  Anyway, she left with no comment from me except usual pleasantries. 
The next day, at the very end of the sale, she returned.  I concluded she must be a neighbor of my friend, and that's why I'd seen her before.  I have brilliant deduction skills.  She milled around a little bit, talked to my friend about her scrap-booking stuff and then turned and looked at me. 
"I know you", she said.  "You were at a different garage sale a couple of years ago- with kittens."  Crap.  Was she going to give one back?  I may have had a cat over-population issue for a while. 
"Oh yeah?, that was my house."  I said.  "Did you take a kitten?"  pleasenopleasenopleaseno.
"No.  I was there with my son who had an ankle bracelet."  Interesting.  "You were really nice to us.  I was in a really bad place in my life, and you told me my son was a 'real gem'."  She was getting teary now, but kept going.  "He wasn't a really bad kid, but he'd made some really bad choices, and I was at my wits end with him.  Nobody ever had anything nice to say about him.  Over the past two years I kept telling myself 'he's a gem, he's a gem that lady said he's a gem'.  It got me through the past two years."
Oh my.  I did remember her.  And he was a nice kid.  He was very kind to my sons...who can be a pain in anyone's hiney, and he was also gentle with the kittens.  She and I had talked about homeschooling, because she'd just pulled him out of school.  Of course, I had no idea why,  but that wasn't important.
I had not been in a very good place myself.  I've gone in and out of depths of pain and anxiety over the years, and I know I wasn't really doing more than functioning at that point.  But, I do remember her eyes.  They were wounded.  Once you've had a hole blown right through the middle of you, you can spot others who are there...or have been.  It's like a little secret club.  It's called the 'please don't shatter me, I've had everything I can handle' club.  The initiation process is brutal, and as far as I can tell, nobody wants in.  But there are lots of us.  Nobody's tragedy trumps anyone else's, and it really doesn't matter why you're in.  You just are.
I'm really glad I came out of my coma to talk to her.  It wasn't me...it's looking back at things like this incident is when I realize where God was in the pain.  I couldn't see Him myself, but I know He lifted my head enough to see this woman and say something nice about her son.  It carried her for two years, and it really had nothing to do with me.  Now I know in hindsight that He did the same for me through others.  Not the ride on His shoulders I kept looking for, but sustinance for the moment.  I think He was carrying me more like a momma cat carries her kittens.  Kinda dragging me around by the nape of my neck.  
Be nice.  Even if you're hurting.  Hold open a door, smile, buy lemonade from some kid for a quarter.  You could be the reason they keep going that day...or even that year.