Look Again

A boardwalk, a prayer, and a lesson I still carry with me

People were making fun of her. Saying things like people like that should be locked up, that’s what drugs will do, it’s so pathetic. They weren’t even trying to be quiet about it, just walking along the boardwalk in Atlantic City like what they were seeing didn’t need a second thought, like it was obvious and already decided.

I had already seen her.

This was my first trip ever by myself, not just a quick getaway but a stretch of time moving from place to place on my own. I had gone to the Hamptons to stay with a friend, then another friend picked me up in New York and we drove down to Atlantic City, and from there I would head to my aunt’s in New Jersey before going home. It was the first time in my life I had been alone like that, really alone, and there was something about it that made everything feel sharper, more present, like I was noticing things I might have missed before.

I had been walking that boardwalk every day, end to end, for an hour or two by myself. It’s something I had done before with my dad and my daughters while visiting my grandmother. She loved Atlantic City. Loved the casinos, the buffets, the whole scene, and she had this habit that stuck with me. She would fill my diaper bag and the stroller with whatever she could grab from the buffet, cookies, fruit, brownies, whatever she could sneak out, and then we’d head out onto the boardwalk and she would feed people.

The worker she knew by name got a cookie. The kids playing drums on overturned cans got brownies. Whoever crossed her path got something.

At the time, it was hysterical to watch. My grandmother casually smuggling buffet pastries through Atlantic City like some kind of snack-based outlaw. But it filled my heart in a way I didn’t fully understand until years later, when I was walking that same boardwalk alone, carrying those memories with me.

So when I saw this woman, I didn’t see what they were seeing.

I saw her.

I walked up to the couple and said, look again.

They looked at me like I was the crazy one, confused, almost annoyed, like I had interrupted something obvious.

What?

Look again.

I pointed, then kept walking. A few seconds later I turned back and both of them had stopped dead in their tracks.

Oh my god.

How cute.

The woman had peanuts. She was calling the squirrels, and they were coming right up to her, climbing onto her, taking peanuts from her hands like it was the most normal thing in the world. It was honestly one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen, and they almost missed it completely because they had already decided what they were looking at.

The next day, I heard her before I saw her.

She was singing Amazing Grace, not casually, not as background noise, but in a way that stopped you. The kind of voice that doesn’t just hit your ears, it hits something deeper. It was soul-piercing in the best way, like my whole body recognized it before my mind did.

Later, as I made my way back down the boardwalk, she was singing God Bless America, and it was the same feeling all over again. That pull you don’t question.

I walked on the far side of the boardwalk that time because it felt like something you don’t interrupt. Like whatever was happening belonged to itself.

But she stopped singing and called for me.

I don’t know if she had noticed me over those days or if something else was at play, but she looked right at me and told me God had a message for me. Then she started walking.

So I followed her.

She led me over to her bench and asked if she could pray with me, and I said yes. She held my hand, palm to palm, and prayed, and it was one of those moments you wish you could replay perfectly afterward. Every word. Every detail. Every feeling. But you can’t. You just know it mattered.

When she finished, she told me the message.

She said it was my job to spread love and patriotism.

I said thank you, not because I fully understood it, but because I didn’t need to.

I asked her if there was anything I could do for her, anything at all, and she smiled and said she would always take donations to buy the squirrels peanuts.

That answer somehow made me love her even more.

I asked if she lived nearby because I suddenly needed to understand something about her, even if I couldn’t explain why. She said she did, and that one day God told her to come out there and sing every day, so that’s what she does.

I never really got to the bottom of the squirrel situation, but honestly, maybe that wasn’t the point.

Here’s the strange, beautiful thing. The day I got back from that trip, I fell in love with my husband, who also happens to be a disabled veteran. We built a life together around spreading love and patriotism.

I don’t try to explain any of it.

I just remember her voice, the squirrels, and the way everything shifted the moment someone finally looked twice.

Look again.