Size matters

I sat, yesterday, watching a Mum walk to the bank, walk to the dentists, walk back to her car.  She walked with easy stride, a casual walk with purpose.  And holding on to her hand was, one presumed, her little son, with legs so short at 3 or 4 that for every step she took in leisure he had to take several, at a run.  Why do parents do this?  Why do they scoot along and make their children run and run to keep up?  Why not slow down a little, walk perhaps at the child's pace.  Would it be so bad?

And so I supped my tea and read articles in The Times.  A man dead, two men arrested, much scandal, and then, settled in inner pages, slid in gently amongst gossip, a report on the growing hunger in South Somalia, with the word Famine being suggested.  For the dead man, who will grieve?  Some?  Many?  Is there a parent to weep?  And for the thousands who lay their children out to die, themselves out to die, for no food.  Who weeps?  Are we more affected by the one death that we see locally than by the very many, far, far away? I ate my toast and pondered.

One of my offspring is sad.  Not a great sadness like a tornado wiping out an entire family, nor one that faces cancer with no cure, nor have they become addicted to cocaine, nor caught for armed robbery.  The pain is caused by the coldness of another.  And this pain of theirs, my loved one, it seeps into every bone, every pore, every fibre until my whole of who I am is agonised by it.  And I feel for the parents of others, but today, for me in my moment, for me here and now, it is the magnitude of sorrow in my little world that overflows.