Foreword
The person who I want to be in life culminated in this exact moment. Our society needs more love, and I’ve been through enough suffering to understand that I don’t want anyone to feel that way, that pain. So, a thought came to me, why don’t we smile more? Everyone just looks away; we walk around as if no one else is there. So I decided to start smiling at people when I pass them. The very first person I did this to, I had to write about.
A gloomy sky falls upon me. As I walk, a smile of mine is ignored. Ear buds in, head down and one thing is true; glass in her eyes. I continued to walk, yet something urged me to talk to her. “Hey! Ma’am!” I exclaimed, “Excuse me!”. Perhaps she heard me, perhaps not but that didn’t stop me. I ran to her catching up to her gloom. Two hands upon her shoulders, “Hey… hey, are you okay?” I said, “No… no please, don’t” she looks away with pure pain on her face. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.” I push, “You are okay.”
She breaks, tears fall upon her face, I grasp her tightly and she grasps me tighter. “You’re okay, it’s okay”, I repeated over and over. She sobs, I keep assuring her. I don’t know her; I’ve never seen her before. Total strangers in one beautiful embrace. “Let go when you’re ready.” I say to the sobbing stranger, she wasn’t ready for quite a while.
She slows to a shallow breath, I look into those glass-filled eyes and know she doesn’t want to talk about it. “It’s okay, you can get through this.” I told her a myriad of different things in an attempt to help her, whether I did or not doesn’t matter; trying to help is what does.
“Thank you.” She cries a little more, “I appreciate you.”
“Go treat yourself, take some deep breaths.” I say with a smile as I wipe a tear off her cheek.
She smiles back, “I appreciate you” with that smile growing. “You have a better day, okay?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “You will,” I said.
Two souls were simply walking past; everyone needs to be shown love. No matter how unexpected. We never exchanged names.