The Value of Connection

Posted on March 17, 2025 Updated on March 17, 2025

How well do you know the person who bags your groceries on a weekly basis? I am here to encourage you to engage with staff you see every week because the rewards to you, and the staff, are immeasurable.

The other day my husband and I said goodbye to our favorite grocery bagger, “Steven.” We saw Steven every week for a few years, and each time we did so – and after a certain measure of trust was established between customer and staff person – Steven opened up more and more to us. We shared grandchild stories while he shared tidbits about his hobbies and his later in life dating adventures.

But the other day, just a couple days before he moved across the country to help out his daughter in her hardware store business, he honored us by walking our groceries out to our car and then opened up like never before when I asked him how long he had worked at that Redmond, Washington area grocery store. His response floored us.

Steven revealed that he started working at the store six years ago, a couple years after he had survived, and been rehabilitated from, a brain aneurysm that didn’t quite stop him dead in his tracks. As a 50-something year old adult, he had to learn everything from scratch. Prior to this severe medical event, Steven was a professor of industrial engineering at a Washington university. Now he bags groceries, which, let me tell you, is a noble profession, especially during all the pandemic and other world events that pitted frontline workers in the midst of disarray and uncertainty.

My husband and I were shocked by his revelation given that we didn’t detect anything medically abnormal about this now 60-something year old gentleman. We never knew about the challenges he endured and overcame; we simply enjoyed our weekly interactions with him and quite frankly, felt those interactions were the highlight of each week’s mundane shopping trips. We were not looking forward to his planned move out of the state.

Opening up and being transparent with others is a vulnerable thing to do and shows a strength that many do not possess.

Once our groceries were loaded into our vehicle we visited with Steven some more and when it was time for him to head back into the store, the three of us exchanged goodbye hugs. We will miss this valuable connection but are happy that the state of Indiana will now get to benefit from this stellar human being we had come to know.