Happy Echoes from Lovely Characters

Some people leave an echo after they walk away.  Sometimes the echo is yucky.  A certain cashier at the grocery store is always mean to me either because I loaded the belt wrong one day or because she is just always having a bad day.  I try to avoid her line so I don't have all those little bits of negativity nibbling at my skin.

Sometimes the echo is like fairy dust, glittering on your skin for hours.   One day at Target a woman said "Excuse me, maam."   I turned suddenly assuming I was in trouble for letting my 2-year-old run around knocking things off the shelf.   I put my hands out for the cuffs.  (I have a fear of authority.)

Instead I found a little old spunky thing of a lady.  She asked where the clothes were and told me she was 95 all in one breath.   She followed with, "Do I look it?"  "Not a day over 61," I told her honestly. 

Angel Hands?
by gratsy via sxc.hu

The senior bus had dropped her off.   She marked the ketchup end cap as her guidepost for where to come back to find the bus.  All her friends had gone to the mall, but she "owed Macy's too much already." 

I pointed her to the ladies clothing.  She commented how adorable my child was (which is true) and instructed me to have a few more.  Before heading to the clothes, she touched my arm.

I kept checking my arm to see if she left an angel mark.  A happy feeling followed me through the day. 

Isn't it amazing how a brief encounter with a stranger, good or bad, can leave us feeling?  Like they left a residual piece of them on us.  I feel the same way with characters in a book.   Was I tougher when I was reading The Hunger Games?  Am I more introspective right now reading The Lost Girl?  Yes and yes. 

Do characters leave a piece of themselves on you?

P.S.  thank you to Sara Sargent and WriteonCon for the copy of The Lost Girl.  I am eating it up.