Emily and her husband are brand new New Yorkers. Well, make that, brand new U.S. citizens, sort of: She’s originally from Ohio, where she and her German husband met in college. They’d been living in Munich for about seven years, up until last Saturday. That’s when the couple moved to New York, a city with a hustle and bustle that isn’t much like Munich. That’s stressful enough, right?  And oh yeah — Emily is 29 weeks pregnant. With twins. Headaches? Abounding. But also plentiful were the hugs and good feelings at a Brooklyn Target, right when Emily needed a dose of happy.

Emily writes that she’d been having a tough go of it and experiencing a bit of culture shock, impending parenthood panic (“Oh my God, how will I feed these babies if I can’t even feed myself?!?” — This, regarding a lack of grocery stores in her new town) and all the aches and pains of finding an apartment in a city antithetical to the notion of easy housing solutions. Things were rough, to say the least.

Until late last week, when she had a bit of an uplifting shopping experience.

I just wanted to write to you about excellent customer service I received while visiting the Brooklyn Target. My husband and I moved to the area approximately 5 days ago and are still working on settling in. To make matters more difficult I’m 29 weeks pregnant with twins and we’ve been searching for an apartment for our growing family, an experience a friend of ours aptly said was “soul crushing.” As we walked through aisles of Target we were asked time and again if we need any help finding anything. Suddenly a friendly sales associate appeared and asked if she could help us and when I was due. I’ve grown accustomed to people thinking it should be any day and dealing with their shock to learn I’m expecting twins and with several months to go.

This sweet woman began to tell me she also had twin sons herself. She said I was fortunate to know ahead of time that I’d be having twins, because she needed an emergency C-section due to high blood pressure and had to put under with general anesthesia. It wasn’t until she awoke that she discovered she had even been pregnant with two babies! We spoke for 5 minutes or so and she offered me a lot of reassurance saying, “You got this!” All of her reassurance made me want to both hug her and cry.

All I know, besides the fact she’s a mom to twins, is that she works Monday through Friday. Thanks for the warm welcome to the city Target sales associate — it truly touched me and my husband’s hearts. I’m already looking forward to stopping in to introduce her to our new additions once they arrive.

The good news, besides the happy huggy times? Emily adds that she and her husband ended up finding a great apartment — not so far from that very same Target.

And another thing worth mentioning: This same Target was dubbed The Worst Target Ever some years back in a two-part video (part one here and part two here), so it’s kind of nice that this is somewhat of a redeeming moment. Perhaps no one (or business) is all bad, after all.

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