LIT moments 2

I don't know what it is with me and buses... In 2007, I blogged about an 'LIT' moment that happened to me. An earlier one occurred in March 1990 - 19 years ago on a Greyhound to Cape Town. I used to keep a diary, which I have to this day and that's how I remember it so clearly. It was a five day Easter study break and my folks had surprised me with a ticket home from Hammanskraal (in the middle of nowhere) where I was studying at the time. After boarding the bus in Johannnesburg, I settled in an upstairs seat, sprawling across two as the one next to mine was empty. Just before we were about to depart, a girl - about my age, 19 at the time - squeezed past and took the seat next to me. She wore glasses and was, I remember thinking, really pretty. We got chatting - her name was Lizette. She was Afrikaans and travelling to visit her boyfriend, Anton, who was in the Airforce at the time and based in Cape Town. We chatted about life and all kinds of stuff for hours. She fell asleep, her head resting on a pillow on my shoulder, her breathing deep and steady. In the wee hours, in the darkness, as we passed through the Karoo, she stared vacantly out of the window. I had been dozing on and off. I looked at her reflection in the tinted glass: 'What are you thinking about?' She turned, and I will never forget the way her wide smile, absolutely lit up the whole of her flawless face. 'I think you know', she replied, shyly. 'I really love him'.
I remember being so grateful for the privilege of witnessing this simple moment of someone in love - uninhibited, wonderfully and recklessly joyfull! In the midst of the darkness of the desolate Karoo. Unexpected. A moment of grace.