Friday, June 19, 2020

I am not an angel

I live in a cul-de-sac.

My last four houses have been in a cul-de-sac.

There are a lot of "walkers" in our neighborhood... people who walk around, just walk and enjoy their walks.... sometimes I am one of them.

Early this morning, I went out to put something in my mailbox for the mailman to pick up. After spells of sunshine, it was Seattle-like, gray and brooding.

I heard a woman sobbing as she rounded the trees in the center of the cul-de-sac... so I delayed a little, and when she got close to me, I asked her if she was OK.

She came to me and hugged me and cried on my shoulders. She was a stranger, but the two or three generations of the women who raised me (my grandmother, my mother, and all my wives) popped through, and I hugged her back, and soothed her and said, "It will be OK."

She cried for a few seconds, then gently pulled away, sniffed... and asked me, "Are you an angel?"

She was serious - I felt the seriousness of the question.

"Fucking far from it", I thought to myself (thank God that I didn't say it out loud!)... but I just smiled and said no and asked her again if she was OK.

"Yeah", she sniffed again and started walking away slowly... then the stranger turned around and said to me, "Thank you Lenny."