I just found this story that I’d written mid February, pre Corona Virus. Hard to believe that it was real now.

These were Travis’ words to me last week at the Food Hub. Some of our team enjoy cooking their lunch, not just opening tubs or packages. Everyone chooses what they’d like to at our Food Hub but all jobs must get done so sometimes this means doing what you don’t like to do, like any job. Peeling onions was one of those tasks last week, one of our team members announced that peeling onions makes you cry so everyone was forewarned.

When the onion smell started to permeate our processing kitchen, folks started to drop away. I invited them to walk outside for fresh air with me to clear our eyes. Travis didn’t join any others on getting away from the pungent kitchen but kept working until every onion was peeled and sliced. He stopped working when we began to clean up and dropped his head. I asked if he was okay and he didn’t respond. Taking out the trash to the outside trash bin seemed like something that could help, when I posed the question to Travis, he turned and started slowly walking to the door. When we got outside, he started to talk with me. He was talking about the movie he saw the weekend before. As we went to reenter the building, I told Travvy that I was sorry for the tears the onions produced. He turned to me and said, “These are tears of joy, Audrey”. I was the one then that didn’t move and dropped my head. I had just heard the voice of an angel.