I remember that she was the most classless person I ever met. She treated everyone exactly the same, either as friends or as potential friends. She approached them with the same expectation that they had only been waiting for this opportunity to her the story of their lives. Which, to their surprise, most of them had. She cared not at all for her surroundings, but accepted each as yet another chance to talk to all the interesting people around her. Bus station, surgery, hospital, church, shop, street-she would talk to anyone anywhere! Not because she has made some sort of decision, but because she could not do otherwise. She fed them pandrops and cups of coffee out of her little flask and wrapped them around in the warmth of her complete attention to them. The most unexpected people poured out their troubles to her, and she listened and gave sensible, motherly advice. Her family used to joke about the people she would pick up, some of whom would write letters or turn up at the door. She never forgot a name, even of people she had met decades before, and the small details of family connections were the stuff of life for her, because they were just that, connections, the links that held people together, the threads that wove them into belonging in the web of life.

Struggles to Love The Spirituality of Beatitudes  By Kathy Galloway (page 46)