Frenchman

One early winter morning in small-town Idaho, I was trudging through the snow on my way to work as a bread baker at our local co-op. Startled by the sound of a voice in the silence of the dawn, I looked up to see a man who appeared to have come straight from a production of Les Miserables. He was wearing heavy work boots that looked as though they were made of hand-tooled leather, rugged canvas trousers, and suspenders over a blouson shirt, and he had a burlap rucksack swung over his shoulder. "Comment ça va, mademoiselle?" he asked in perfect French, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary about it. Stunned for a moment, I stared at him, grasping for words. "Comme ci, comme ça, monsieur. Et vous?" "Tout est bien," he replied, smiling at me. All is well. His eyes were deeply wrinkled, kind, and very blue. He continued speaking, but I could no longer understand - the French was too advanced for me. "Je ne comprends pas," I said. "Vous devez pratiquier, non?" he said, still acting as though this was the most natural conversation in the world. Then he tipped his cap, took his leave, and walked on. I stood for a moment, struck still by the strangeness of this unexpected interaction. Then I turned around to see him again, but he had completely vanished. I felt suddenly uplifted, as though I had been given a rare gift of grace.

Perhaps God knew that I needed to be buoyed up, reassured that all is well, because when I got to work I found out that my beloved littlest sister had come within about five minutes of dying of alcohol poisoning that night, but she had been revived by emergency workers.

I have no idea who this man was. I hadn't seen him before, nor have I seen him since. I like to think he was an angel who had just come from the rescue scene.