At first, I did not think this encounter mattered enough to write about. It is made of quite ordinary materials: a doctor’s lab order, my taking a ticket and waiting, an open door and my name being called searchingly—Katelyn?—across an empty waiting room, as if there were anyone else to choose from. But if what happens in the waiting rooms and routine appointments of our lives does not matter, then what does? The most profoundly ordinary moments of our lives can and will reveal something beautiful and unexpected—if we are paying attention.

So here it is, the story of how an encounter with a phlebotomist reminded me of my humanity. . .