Peanut Butter Kisses

Today someone left peanut butter kisses on the break room table at work.  You know peanut butter kisses?  They are the wrapped peanut butter flavored taffy wrapped in black and orange waxed paper?  The kisses wrapped in orange paper taste the best.  I took a peanut butter kiss for myself and remembered back to a job where I got a peanut butter kiss every day.  I worked as a nurses aid when I was in college.  The nursing home backed up to some woods that led to the St. Cloud penitentiary and that made for exciting walks to our cars when we heard a convict had escaped.  One of the patients there was a woman who was younger than the other residents.  I think her first initial was T.  T had physical challenges in her middle age that made it impossible for her to live at home.  Her husband's name was Jerry.  Jerry came to visit his wife every night after work.  He stayed all evening.  He ate meals with his wife and sometimes their children and grandchildren came to the nursing home too. When I first started there, Jerry would offer me a piece of candy from a bowl with many kinds of candy.  He learned my name and he learned my candy choice; peanut butter kisses.  Every night Jerry would find me and give me a peanut butter kiss. If I wasn't working on T's wing, he would come and find me.  Looking back, I see now I took Jerry for granted.  Never have I had another job where I got a piece of candy every day I worked.  Seldom have I met a man so kind, so cheerful, and so devoted to his wife.  Jerry took lemons and made them into lemonade. I was just a kid back in those days when Jerry gave me peanut butter kisses.  I had no idea how great of a guy he really was.  So today, as I chewed my peanut butter kiss, I thought of Jerry and finally realized how lucky I was to have known him.