Day 3 – Lonely In a Crowd – Who Helps?
Lonely in a crowd, a Mother Struggles
Sometimes you can be lonely in a crowd.
People everywhere, going here and there and nowhere too,
but looking, you see no eyes to be seen.
She enters the train carriage.
Her face a roadmap of worries,
a toddler in hand, crying baby in the pram
and shopping hooked on its handles.
If only the car hadn’t chosen today to not start.
Didn’t it know there was no-one to help
and groceries to be bought
at a distance?
With nowhere to sit and
barely enough room to stand,
her mind is consumed not in the present
but exhausted, is already thinking of the long wait to come
for a bus and the journey from the station to the house.
If only her legs and back didn’t ache.
If only she wasn’t so tired.
She wonders how she can cope,
but cope she must.
For her children’s sake.
Suddenly, an old woman, her face mapped with wrinkles
and a lifetime of journeys stands.
She gently insists the young woman take her seat.
“I’ve been where you are now. I know it’s hard.
Your need is greater than mine.”
It was such a simple kindness.
No great sacrifice, yet generously real.
It alone with the power to ease her pain
and nourish her lonely, hurting soul.
Lonely in a crowd we can all ease another’s burden.
Soothe another’s grief and somehow
nourish our own humanity too.
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