Last Friday when I was doing our weekly grocery shopping at the supermarket, I heard a loud, excited voice calling my name. I looked about and saw no one I knew, no familiar face, but there approaching me was a large woman smiling beatifically and repeating my name. What else could flash through one's mind than a desperate attempt to fit an unknown face into memory, and the thought that someone recognizes you and you're incapable of returning the compliment. I felt like an absolute dud, having to acknowledge her query that yes indeed, I couldn't place her. She laughed and said cheerily that it wasn't any wonder since she was 20 years older and 30 pounds heavier. Kind of her but years and weight wouldn't mask memory of someone's facial features, and I kept drawing a blank.

Then she mentioned a few other names and the place where I'd last worked and at least a few things clicked into place, even if I still couldn't place her personally into the puzzle that was swiftly making sense. I looked just the same as I'd done two decades ago since I had retired, she said, burbling with pleasure. And kindness too, I must say, in her willingness to overlook the fact that someone she could recall had no memory of her. Yes, she was now retired too, she said, living with her 27-year-old daughter and enjoying life, and it was clear, she said, that I was, too. An observation I was pleased to second, eager to agree with just about anything she said, feeling so abashed about the misery of facing a stranger who shouldn't have been a stranger to me.

She reminded me of the going-away party that the unit had thrown in my honour. Did I remember the song that was written for me? she asked and immediately began singing the chorus. Yes, now that she was amazingly recalling even the words to the chorus and singing in perfect pitch, I remembered. I was the only one she had ever met, she said, who could be counted on to state things as I saw them. Do you remember the time you told ... and she named someone whose name I don't recall, but who was obviously an important elite ... that he was a liar to his face? I can recall, she said, that encounter, and when I heard what you said, I just kind of said, uh-uh!

Did I remember that? I smiled, as though to acknowledge that I did, and then honesty got the better of me and once again I had to admit, no, I don't recall that incident either. I told someone to their face that they're a liar? Rather bald-faced, to be sure, and to be sure, I do believe that if I ever had the inclination to call someone out like that I would be more diplomatic about it. But who knows? Perhaps she was confusing me with someone else? Nope, she laughed, that was me, to a tee.

Leading me to think: do I even know myself? I  apologized for my lack of acuity in dredging up a memory that shouldn't have been that far distant that it was hidden forever from recall. I said to her, likely it's the combination of age and failing memory, not that I believed what I was saying, just trying to make it seem plausible to her that there was no wish to forget someone as pleasant as she certainly was; if there was fault to be apportioned it was all mine; time, age; befuddlement.

She didn't care, she really didn't. She was just sweet-natured and pleasantly accepting, and pleased to have come across me. Now, she said, when she sees someone we both knew back then, she could tell them she'd seen me, and I'm just the same as I always was. I thanked her for recognizing me, for not walking on when it became obvious that the recognition was a one-way street, and told her I truly appreciated seeing her, speaking with her, returning to old memories thanks to her graciousness.

She laughed and said that was just her nature; her daughter and her grandchildren always had a tendency to tell her she shouldn't acknowledge this person or that, and she would tell them she'd rather speak to people and if they weren't interested, no big deal. Which is exactly how I too feel. It's in my nature as well to speak a cheery hello to people I pass, some of whom respond, some don't; their choice.

But I was curious. After the party was over and I said my final goodbyes to my former co-workers, every one of whom I liked, I had bundled up all my possessions, and included with them all the gifts I'd been given at the party. I received a final gift days later. It was a small photograph album with pictures taken at the party. With it was a recording of the song they all sang, written for my departure, a comic, wistful happy song that almost made me cry. Inserted into the last pocket of the album was the written transcript of the song. And among the photographs and people assembled within them, there was her picture. She didn't look all that different from 20 years ago herself.

But I had forgotten.