Small Things + Great Love = Mighty Impact

Small Things + Great Love = Mighty Impact

Cassie started working as a waitress at Avalon Diner when I was beginning grade school—and she retired after fifty years of faithful presence in the same job.

Nearly every Friday for twenty-five of those fifty years, my father and I sat across from one another at “Cassie’s booth” for breakfast. And although she could write up orders, pour coffee, and balance plates with the best of them, she wasn’t just our waitress. She was family.

When I found out Cassie was retiring, my heart sank. I simply couldn’t imagine our Fridays at Avalon without Cassie’s banter, her smile, her playful teasing of my dad, her questions about family and work and—finally—the “What you want this mornin’, baby?” that I can just about hear in my sleep. No menus. She knew we didn’t need them, and neither did she. And if dad couldn’t always remember or decide what it was he wanted—she reminded him.

On Cassie’s last day we were settled in our regular booth, and she was on her feet, moving through the morning crowd as cheerfully as always. But as person after person streamed in with cards and flowers and hugs, what I’d never realized became very clear: Cassie wasn’t just our favorite. She was everyone’s. She’d loved a lot of people year after year the very same way she’d loved us. Her son Rodney was there, and she pointed him out so I could say hello. He told me he’d walked his mama to the bus stop on her first day at Avalon and then walked to his own stop to catch the school bus. “I told her then that on her last day, I’d drive her to work and drive her home,” he told me. “So here I am.”

“We sure do love your mama,” I told him.

“She loves you, too,” he replied. And then he added, “She’s my role model.”

Cassie’s my role model too: small things done with great love equal mighty impact over time—no matter where you find yourself. And it’s the people you meet along the way that matter most of all.

Don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best.

Colossians 3:23, MSG