Months of Observation

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

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By Meire Marion on cell phone