Good Day Bad Day...

Earlier today I was cursing where we live. I’m missing the simple pleasures of an active life at home. Walking the dog in the open spaces of a park by the river, going for a bike ride along the beach then cooling off with a swim, playing sport to get that feeling of exhaustion from effort. These activities were part of my life and their loss was so very important at that moment. Tensed by my angst, I walked to the open window to shout down the beeping traffic for one minute’s silence. I reach the window and looked out to the street below, ready to add my voice of frustration to the sounds of the gridlocked traffic. As my eyes focused, I felt like I’d been smacked in the face, square on the nose.
My eyes were fixed on a woman, shuffling very slowly along the dusty, broken footpath on her hands and backside. My seemingly important issues vanished in an instant as my tears started to blur my vision of the street below. The woman was missing her lower right leg and was moving in the only way she could, shifting her body along between the tripod formed by her outstretched arms and her remaining leg, coming to rest on the hardened skin of her rear.
It was difficult to make out her features as her only dress matched the colour of her hair and skin which in turn blended with the pavement on which she struggled. Her camouflage must have made her invisible to the passers by, or at least, that’s the way it seemed. She is not the first nor unfortunately will she be the last person we see struggling in this city.
We responded with a gift of money, much more than the few rupees in coins she held in her hand. Her response was a smile of a few teeth. Slowly she continued forward pushing a small plastic bag of possessions, manoeuvreing between a tree stump and an open drainage channel to urinate. The edge of the drainage channel was too difficult to reach safely, so holding her tattered dress off the ground, she did what we all must do. The effort she made to be discrete by the channel was in vein as her physical limitations held her to the broken path, where she had to move as quickly as she could to shift her bag from the line of approaching urine. Just one of the many struggles she must endure, daily.
We made up a care package with a new canvas shoulder bag, some old clothes and food and walked up the street to hand it to her. She was quick to draw her dress over the stump of her leg and continued what seemed a mumbled monologue, a cry for help in a language we don’t understand.
This blog is not to judge those who passed by, nor is it self praise to our small actions.
It serves to remind that a scene like this is an abrupt and awful way to give consideration to the fact, that a bad day for some, may be the best day in the life of another.