In the cereal aisle at the grocery store, a woman came up to me and said, “Can I tell you something?”
I said, “Yes.”
“I’m a fourth grade teacher and when I was in fourth grade my teacher read Because of Winn-Dixie to the class. My mother left the family when I was five, and I thought that Winn-Dixie had been written just for me, that my teacher was reading the story to me because I needed it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said again.
“Now, I’m a fourth grade teacher and I’m reading Winn-Dixie to my class and last week a boy came up to me and said, ‘This book makes me happy.’ That’s all he said. That the book makes him happy. And I felt like I was doing something that really, really mattered. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I was crying.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s all I wanted to say. Also, can I hug you?”
“Yes,” I said.
The world breaks my heart and mends my heart again and again.
Even in the cereal aisle.

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