Yesterday was my last teaching day of the semester, and I wasn’t feeling well. I had an unexpected break and decided to treat myself to some Thai food before teaching at six. I don’t remember the last time I really went to eat somewhere alone so I was kind of nervous about feeling out of place, but someone else was doing the same thing near me which helped.

There was a couple and a little boy across the room. And at some point the lady started talking to me about how they just went to an animal sanctuary and played with lions through the glass. The father chuckled easily, kissing his boy on the cheek, saying the lion wasn’t playing. The woman looked at me and said you’d do the same thing, wouldn’t you? And she came over to me, showing me a video on her phone, where this lion and herself were interacting. I said I would have done the same, even if the lion thought of me as lunch.

This meant so much to me. That someone cared enough to just interact with me that day. And it helped me get through my last class of the semester.