A helping hand

We've never been so many, and we've never been so alone


These words were screaming in my head as our car passed a lady who was walking on the road. First, I only managed to take a glance at her. Her looks were casual and I wouldn't have looked at her twice but since I had nothing else to do, I watched her as she walked by us. Surprisingly she was wiping her tears away steadily. She was crying, and she was in solitude. From then I lost sight of her. I don't wish to begin speculating reasons that would make her cry so helplessly. There must be a lot of other people like her. It just made me think, why didn't she have a comforting shoulder to lean on? And why is there a strong feeling within that what I saw wasn't something unusual? Maybe there are a lot of cases similar to the one I saw. Crying might be a common method.

I wanted to do something to comfort her. Alas, I couldn't.
What if she needed to pour her heart out with tears, she felt she needed to get rid of something sad for good? Here I am falling for my speculations. Since I started, what if the only thing she needed was someone to be there for her? Her son? Her daughter? Her husband? What if she had none? What if there was no one that could stand by her side? Then what?

I will let this matter rest, I can continue guessing reasons, I know deep down inside it won't change a thing. I have one firm belief on this. It'd have made all the difference in the world if she had someone by her side at that moment. What we need is just to try and truly listen to others. Sometimes we feel that we can't afford to hear about more problems that others have. We have enough of our own. Try it one time though, mostly people only seek someone to care and to listen. They don't need you to solve their problems. They could figure out the solution to their problems by just telling them to you. They might feel hope. They might be happy that although their problem is not gone, they do indeed have someone who cares.

If you could accomplish such a thing, you've made a difference. There's just one last thing, is it that hard to do something to change the world we live in?
You decide the answer to that question.


One single smile, a helping hand, It's not that hard to be a friend