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| Photo Created by James Dacey Jr using Co-Pilot |
There's a woman at my local grocery store who's been bagging
groceries for probably thirty years. She knows everyone's name. She asks about
your kids, remembers your dog had surgery, and tells you to drive safely when it's
raining. Last week, I watched her spend five minutes helping an elderly man
count out exact change while a line formed behind him. Nobody sighed. Nobody
checked their phone impatiently. We all just... waited. Because we know her.
And when she retires someday, that store will feel different. Emptier. Like
something irreplaceable walked out the door.
Here's what gets me: she's never going to be famous. She'll never have a
Wikipedia page or a building named after her. Her job title won't impress
anyone at a cocktail party. But I guarantee you, when her time comes, there
will be people at that funeral who wouldn't have missed it for the world.
People who will say, "She saw me. She remembered me. She made me feel like
I mattered." That's a dash filled with names and faces and moments of
kindness so small they're almost invisible, until you add them all up and
realize they built a cathedral.
We live in a world obsessed with platform, reach, and impact at scale. We
want to change the world, influence thousands, leave a mark so big it can't be
missed. And sure, maybe that's your calling. But what if it's not? What if your
dash gets filled one person at a time, one kind word, one moment of patience,
one act of noticing? What if the greatest thing you ever do is make someone
feel seen in aisle seven while you're bagging their groceries? The world won't
applaud. But heaven will.
Dash-worthy living doesn't require a stage. It requires showing up. Remembering
names. Seeing people, really seeing them, when everyone else is rushing past.
It's choosing to be present in the small, unglamorous, repetitive moments, because
those moments aren't small to the person receiving them. The Chaplet of Divine
Mercy has a line that says, "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have
mercy on us and on the whole world." Mercy isn't always the grand gesture.
Sometimes it's exact change and a smile. Sometimes it's your name remembered.
Sometimes the dash gets filled in a grocery store.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
