Lonely & Small
I watched her walk across the field and away from the school. The grass beneath her feet was dying and the sky, which had produced rain all day, was getting dark. Despite her considerable height, she looked so vulnerable, lonely, and small — so exposed to the harsher elements of the world. Her back was to me, but her steps betrayed her sadness. And I could tell that she was cold. She walked as though she carried not just a bag filled with papers to grade, but a heavy heart and the weight of the world. She looked like a child lost in a busy mall — walking with uncertainty and just about to cry for her mother. I wanted to run to her, scoop her up in my arms, and embrace her with the promise that everything would be okay. I wanted to fix her world. I wanted to offer her more than knowing looks and sympathetic words.
She was almost halfway across the field now. If I dropped everything and sprinted I could catch up to her. But we had never been close. I had heard her story, as I’m sure she’d once heard mine, in bits and pieces and whispers. What a tragedy. Such a shame. The husband and both of the children. It’s a miracle she survived. Do you think she’ll sell the house? I know I couldn’t live there anymore.
I knew the sharp and cutting pieces her world had shattered into — her loss an abstract reflection of my own. Her loved ones taken in a robbery turned violent, mine by a dark night and an icy…
