Loss

As we were driving home tonight from a weekend camping trip, I watched out the window absentmindedly as the world whizzed dreamily before my eyes. My brain suddenly registered something that snapped me back to attention. Next to the road was a graveyard, and there, absolutely blinded by grief, was a young woman sitting dazedly on top of the dirt mound of a brand new grave, which--and this must have seemed like a slap to the face for her--was overflowing with a heap of beautiful, newly bloomed flowers. Her car was next to her, and in her grief she hadn't thought to shut the door.

 My heart will break for that woman for the rest of my life--those few seconds forever etched into my memory like a photograph. I have never in my life felt so helpless--I yearned to comfort this nameless woman like a mother yearns to hold her newborn child.

I will never know her name. I will never know who she was grieving for--a parent? A boyfriend? A husband? A child? I will never know her story and I will never know if she went home to an empty house. And she will never know that I saw her and wanted more than anything in the world to reach out to her, but with hands unable to reach, I could only watch helplessly as she disappeared forever from my sight. She will never know that my heart silently broke alongside of hers that day.

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