D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat. Her column is published here each Tuesday. Opinions expressed are solely her own.

On a recent hurried visit to the hardware store, as I sat on a bench waiting for the attendant to mix a bucket of paint, a stranger sat down to join me.

The Hispanic woman, appearing to be in her mid 60s, looked at me and gave a slight smile. Not very long after that and seemingly out of nowhere, she began to talk.

If you had to imagine what two stranger ladies would talk about on a bench in the paint section of Home Depot, you might imagine the weather, or paint colors or some other domestic conversation. What followed was hardly that.

The woman, without preamble, began to tell me about her life. That she was married to a good man, and they had moved to Florida to retire. They had sold their old home at a good price and built a new home here. They were living their retirement dream.

Then in 2006, on an ordinary morning after having their morning coffee, he went outside to cut the grass and fell dead of a heart attack.

"I still miss him so,” she said, tears filling her eyes. "I'm so glad that, at least, he got to spend six years enjoying his retirement. He was a good man. Not a perfect man, but I really loved him."

"Then almost two years ago," she continued, " my only daughter passed away from an asthma attack. She was my rock. I only have the one child left, and he is mildly disabled."

My heart ached for her and I reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm so sorry," I said.

So we sat there talking, long after the man said my paint was ready. And long after I left I wondered about her. She must be living with incredible pain to cause her to expose herself that way to a stranger, I thought. I was somehow honored that she had chosen me.

As I continued to mull our conversation on my drive home, it came to me that maybe she didn't need to tell her story half as much as I needed to hear it.

I needed to be reminded that spouses and children aren't perfect; we love them anyway. In the ordinariness of our day, sudden tragedy can strike and a loved one can be taken. We must love them every day.

I needed to be reminded that the trivial things that so often vex us about our loved ones evaporate when they are suddenly gone and we are left to miss them and carry on.

I believe that sometimes The One who wound up this world and set it in motion also sends us messengers. Not like Moses or Jonah, but people -- sometimes strangers – to preach us sermons.

And from my pew, in the front row of the paint section of the Home Depot, I say, "Amen."

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