Day in, day out, she sits on her wooden box as
one, two, three, five hundred cars drive by or stop at the red light. She
doesn´t blink, sits there as if she were a statue.
When it rains she sits there wrapped in plastic
shopping bags. She just sits there. Perhaps she is watching the traffic go by,
perhaps her eyes go where no one can see, or perhaps she is blind. She does not
own an umbrella.
At first glance you think she is sitting on a
chair, but if you take a closer look, you will notice that she is sitting on a
wooden grate. On the left side of the grate there are plastic bags filled with
all her belongings. Maybe her belongings are food, clothes and pictures of her
family who have forgotten her.
She does not speak. Once she was seen near the
traffic light sitting very close to the curb holding on to a light post. Guess
she was doing that to catch the breeze as the cars raced by to beat the red
light it might have been a scorching summer day. On real cold days, she just
sits near a wall. Not bothering the people who pass by.
One day while she was seated closer to the curb
under a tree, a girl who was walking by perhaps on her way home from work, hit
her on the arm and greeted her. The woman wrapped in plastic bags smiled broadly
with a few teeth missing, nonetheless, it must have made her day. She shyly
looked around to see whether anyone had noticed the act of kindness.
After having observed her for months, I decided
that I wanted to help her some way, either by giving her some clothes or food.
I decided to do both. I didn’t want to offend her, so I had planned to ask her
whether she would accept a donation.
I left work on a sunny Wednesday and as I
reached her location she was nowhere to be seen. Her stool made of a wooden box
and her backpack where there, but she wasn’t. Perhaps she had gone to the
bathroom nearby, perhaps she had been kidnapped, and many maybes ran in my
head. I went home worried.
On the following day I tried once again and
there she was. She was sitting closer to the curb. I rolled down my window and
asked her whether she would accept my donation; she smiled and kindly said that
if it was a blanket she did not have a place to keep it. She said that there
was not much room in the small room where she slept and se added that she was
afraid of thieves. I told her it was a coat, a scarf and a long-sleeved blouse.
She thanked me but said she already had those articles of clothing and asked me
to donate it to some one else. I agreed and then said that the other donation was
crackers and cookies. She showed me such a broad smile and said that she would
be more than happy to accept that. She also mentioned that if God willing she
would soon get her house back. I did not ask much because some car stopped
behind me and the driver started to honk. I just asked her her name and she
said Sara, Rebecca Sara. With that being said I drove away.
Written July 28, 2016
Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion
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| By Meire Marion on cell phone |
