Poor Little Thing
She came to the office today, and this has been my only arena of contact with her for the years that I’ve been aware of her life.
Her daughter always brings her, and together they pass through the doors meek and bowed and deferential, wearing the mien of learned helplessness, carrying the rooted resignation of their bloodline but lacking the grit. They see me as an authority, me — and no matter how soft or unassuming or passive I present myself to them, I have never been able to convince them that I am from their world, not the world of my employers.
She wears knit gloves and a wool knit cap and a sweater over a plain housedress that hangs on her bony frame. Her steps are soundless with the plain canvas sneakers on her little feet, her little hard-life feet. Her eyes are wide and fearful but so ready, so eager to please. She addresses me as “sir,” as does her daughter, and they always sit very close together when they are with me. The mutual reassurance of touched knees, of heads inclined towards each other, of soft murmurs of assent. And who am I to be a “sir” to these two, and how can I ever tell them of the deep and choking love I have for them, for their kind? They would not hear me. They would not want to hear me. It would not be their way to receive or acknowledge such words.
She tells me in a whisper that her husband died a month ago, and her one direct gaze into my face at that moment of revealed pain, stops time for a moment. All the loss she cannot articulate flows into me, and all the loneliness of an already secluded and bruised life, and all the questions she’s been taught are wrong to even voice…these things are suddenly with me in the most intimate and raw and laid-bare way.
I listen to them and I watch them, and I focus on the mother, the older one, the new widow, and her short, musical sentences remind me of a woman I taught in Sunday School, many years ago. And I know that so much of this little one’s life is given over to pondering the silence of the God she is afraid not to worship, and I know equally well that she would not sit still for the discussions of theology and theory that occupy the daily time of so many. Poor little thing. She is not learned nor well-read enough to really understand God. Best for her to sit in the pew and try to do better.
I suspect she has no idea of her value, her worth, her ethereal brilliance. I suspect she does not have many more seasons in this life, and I smile while she speaks to me but I watch her daughter’s face and I think to myself What will you do when she is gone from your life? To whom or to what will you apply this balm of self-denying gentleness? Will you have another knee to bump yours up against? Will you run errands for anyone else? Are you storing up the grace of memories even now, and do you know the exertion of the act of storing is so very, very worth it?
When we have completed our business, they stand together and move to the door, daughter holding mother’s birdwing elbow, mother holding her large purse in one twisted hand and her angular, modern aluminum cane in the other. They smile at me with a shyness that I would not trade for all the chapel ceilings in Europe, and they thank me with a sincerity that makes me think of sacraments and cirrus clouds and cinnamon toast.
To the window I go, and I watch them leave the building and take those careful, soft-soled steps to the old car in which they came, and I watch an act of purest love in the movements of a daughter helping her mother get seated and belted and settled. The car blows blue smoke out of the tailpipe in a roaring puff, and it carries them out of my sight, rocking on its bad shocks and springs. They are talking as they leave, and the old woman is gesturing with her hands, more animated than she is in the presence of those whose eyes she so rarely meets.
Does her protective attire… her sweater and hat and gloves…does it keep her from feeling the chill in the air and the slice of the wind? And does the distance between us keep her from feeling the prayers that I am throwing after her, like handfuls of rice at a wedding? Poor little thing. Poor little daughters, both of them. So unimportant in the busy and buying world in which they move like the shadows of unworthy sinners.
~ S.K. Orr
7 Comments
Stephen Covell
I am glad I read this eloquent post.
For the record, though – maybe those two people feel sorry for You.
In a way, Life is easy for them – they do not have to impress anyone, and they are never without a friend. Sure, there are money problems … and those can be huge …. and I do not want to diminish those problems —– and sure the older one is now a widow …. which is not an easy thing to be for most people —– but maybe she still thinks she is more fortunate than her sisters who never had a husband who stayed around long enough to leave his wife a widow ….. just saying …. obviously neither one is healthy, either, and I do not want to diminish the sufferings of people who need a cane to walk ….. one of the worst things about this fallen world is knowing how many happy healthy young people grow into people who never have a healthy day for the last few decades of their lives …. not even a single hour when they can walk again without pain as they did when they were young, and so on.
And when they look at you, what do they think? Maybe they wonder what life is like for those people who want to be called sir.
And maybe they have never given much thought to you – that is why they still call you sir, and have never prayed to God about you, in a way that would change their attitude towards you. Maybe they are not as nice as you think they are – they never once considered not calling you sir, did they?
Well, despite everything …..
God blesses them – they have fears and so forth but they probably never have a lonely moment. The younger one will never be lonely, I think; at least not if you described her correctly, and I think you did. You do seem to have a gift of empathy, and I trust you to have described her as well as you could.
I could be completely wrong. If I missed something in your story, and misread a beautiful story wrongly, it will not be the first time!
admin
Stephen, I’m really not sure if you misread what I wrote or if my writing is clumsy, or what. Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of your comment. You seem to be engaging in a level of speculation about these two children of God in which I’m unwilling to participate. I wrote this post for the same reason I write so many of my posts. I see or sense suffering in other people and in animals, and I attempt to discover and explore my own thoughts and ideas about that universal experience, suffering. Sorry if I am misunderstanding your remarks. Perhaps the confusion can be traced to the fact that I write my posts for me, and I make no real attempt to structure them like a classical essay or op-ed piece or anything like that. Except for a quick review for spelling errors, etc., my posts snap from my brain to my fingers to the electronic page. They are spontaneous and direct. I will admit that many, many of my posts give me the willies when I re-read them later, but they are authentic and genuine. To sit on them and polish them to a level of scholarly clarity would not only be impossible for me…it would be phony. So it may be that you didn’t understand me, I didn’t write well, or a combination of these two things, or none of the above. At any rate, I appreciate you stopping by and commenting.
And I have no idea why the weird italics showed up there in my response. Can’t find the cause here on my end, so I’ll just let it stand as is…
Stephen Covell
Your writing is very clear, I have read dozens of your comments and I liked them all, I can’t really understand why you would feel any regret at anything you have said.
Except that one time you made fun of Marine recruits, that remark gave me an hours worth of bad dreams the night after I read it (I too once was in charge of young new recruits, although not as a drill instructor, even though I had been offered such a job, and the thought never crossed my mind to mock them….just the opposite, I was filled with respect at the idea that my fellow Americans would trust me to train them to be soldiers ….)
With respect to these two wonderful human beings you described, I speculate about them because I love them, they remind me of most of the people I know.
Not some but most. And not even just “most” but almost all. Almost everyone I know leans on someone else in a way like that …. it is charming, in its way.
I thought what you wrote was very empathetic and beautiful. I am sorry if I seemed to be critical!
I just wondered – you are obviously a good person, and they are obviously children of God.
But why do they call you sir, and pretend that you are a functionary and not a fellow human being?
Are they being unkind, are they trying to hint to you that you do not deserve to be called by your name?
Do they need my prayers, or yours, to overcome that last little bit of pride that might be keeping them from being saints? That last little bit of pride that even those people who suffer a lot, and who are humble, are reluctant to give up?
I don’t know. But I will pray for them night and day if it helps.
Anyway, I apologize if I seemed to be critical ! Communication is difficult ….
admin
Mr. Covell, thank you for the comment you left…I wanted you to know that I emailed you, in case you haven’t checked your email.
Bookslinger
One reason it is painful, I think, (and this applies to me too) is that when you perceive (see/feel) their spiritual wounds, it invokes the memory, or plucks the string, of your own spiritual (and psychological and psychic) wounds.
Your own past wounds don’t have to be exactly the same as those in the person whom you are observing, They only have to be “close enough.”
It’s somehow related to PTSD and secondary PTSD.
My parents both suffered a lot of abuse/trauma in their youth. They had PTSD. I have primary PTSD from my own trauma, but also secondary PTSD from them. Even victims can transmit PTSD by projecting a constant attitude of victimhood upon their children, which they unknowingly absorb and consider a normal part of their being, as everyone considers their family as normal when they’re very young and don’t know better.
A “victim attitude” or PTSD in the child can go on to attract predators, like a wounded rabbit attracts wolves, and actually triggers them to salivate.
You looked at that humble woman and your heart went out. Others look at her and see an easy mark.
My theory, and hope, is that when we empaths find healing for our own wounds, the sight of others’ wounds will no longer be painful.
I think the key is the Great Physician, the Redeemer, by whose stripes we are healed.
As the sinners/perpetrators must call upon the Great Sacrifice, “give their sin” to Him, consider Him as paying the price/penalty and “buying” it, and repent in order to be forgiven…..
so must the victims call upon the same Great Sacrifice, “give their wounds” to Him, consider Him as paying the price for what wounded them (He “purchasing” both the sin/offense and the healing) and forgive in order to be healed.
Offenders must repent to be forgiven of God; victims must forgive to be healed of God; and the Atonement enables both.
It took me a long time to realize how the Atonement is for victims, not just sinners/offenders. Now , when I focus on “Jesus paid for it” I can let go of the offense, thinking Jesus “bought” it, it’s no longer mine. He can deal with the offender according to his consumate justice, mercy, and perfect understanding. I don’t have to wait for the offender to repent, as that is no longer my concern, it’s His.
Bookslinger
You, sir, are an empath of a high order. God trusts you enough to see others’ souls, to be moved thereby, and to feel what they feel.
You are being blessed. God is showing you a glimpse of what He sees, and giving you a taste of what He feels.
This is a form of the gift of discernment, the discerning of spirits.
You are being taught from on high.
admin
Thank you for your very thought-provoking remark, Bookslinger. I can only say that I have always observed and gleaned such things from people, and that it’s painful. But I would not wish to not be able to feel such things.