After one performance, after I finished the trick, as some of the people were asking, “how did you do that,” he stunned me.

It was a close-up gig at a client’s Christmas party, and one spectator reflected: “This is the best card trick that I’ve seen in years. This reminds me of the time my friend was doing card tricks at my daughter’s surgery.”

Now I was the spectator.

“She was having a major operation. She’s okay now, but at the time we weren’t so sure how it would turn out.”

We were all his audience now.

“I didn’t even have my parents there, it was too stressful for me. Just my best friend and my wife. I was a mess. The two hours that she was under were the longest two of my life.

“But this guy, my friend, had his cards with him. First he was doing card tricks for the nurses to pass the time. Then for me. I was in awe. For a few minutes I wasn’t in hell.

“For a few minutes, I was thinking about something else.”

That planted a seed for the guy sitting next to him. Now it was his turn to be the magician. “I know just one card trick,” he said.

“When my grandma was in hospice, I kept doing this one card trick for her, over and over. She loved it so much, she didn’t even care how I did it.”

Another seed was planted, and now I remembered my grandma in a hospital bed a few years ago. She was feeling down because she was tired of being in the hospital. She was reacting to my silly little card trick, and I suddenly heard her incredible, beautiful, contagious laugh.

I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time that I’d hear her laugh, and she would pass a week later.

Back at the Christmas party, I didn’t say much back. There wasn’t much to say to either of them.

Before I could put my cards away, someone tapped my shoulder for one more trick. And as she reacted, I couldn’t wait for the magic to start again.