Bearing Fellowship

"When we our betters see bearing our woes,

We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most in the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind.
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.”
William Shakespeare.

When I'm traveling I'm constantly watching the little things around me, to see if something is slightly out of kilter. It's my training and even off duty, it's still ingrained in me. They say you never truly take off a badge and they're right. Yet there are moments in my day when I'm privileged to observe simple every-day human interaction without the risk of personal involvement, events which to most people would appear inconsequential but to a lone observer are infused with a sense of poignancy so touching and intense that you can't help but take it home with you.

An event I recently witnessed could have been discarded as trivial to someone focused on the rush to catch a flight, or to get home to a loved one, likely missed altogether. I had a flight to someplace for something routine I didn't want to do right now, other things on my mind. Perhaps it was just my over emotional state as of late that colored the event to raise it above that of the mundane, for having dealt with difficult emotions myself, I could observe them in others. In any event, what I witnessed, after a typical day on the run, a day stretched longer than a country road, still stays in my mind.

It was a small section of the airport concourse that is usually quiet, and empty, except for the squeals of children during daytime, playing on some plastic play equipment, bustling about with the inexhaustible energy characteristic of only the very young, while their travel-weary parents get a few precious moments to simply breathe. I sat down to call my best friend and check on Barkley. They were on the phone and said they'd call back.

Then across from me a young woman sat down in one of the many empty plastic chairs. I noticed her because she had the same coloring as my daughter, strawberry blond hair and blue-green eyes. She looked like she was 16, though her face showed she was probably in her early 20's, dressed clean and neatly in the latest fashion, holding a book bag and a big purse, maybe a university student. Like the rest of us, she looked thrilled to have finally escaped the aircraft, after too long wedged aloft in a too small seat.


I really should have minded my own business, but I was waiting for my phone call to be returned before I went down the escalator that takes you to baggage claim and out to freedom, into the area of no phone reception. So I watched her, one leg drawn up, holding her arm up to her chest, as she excitedly got out her cell phone, with a smile and a longing in her movements that touched my heart. Probably going to call her boyfriend to tell him she was on the ground and ready to be picked up. I moved down another section of seats to give her a bit of privacy for her conversation. So, although I could not hear the words spoken, I could not help but notice her reaction as the conversation became softly animated, then pleading, her hand moving as she spoke, a futile and formal expression of all promise. Then a dial tone apparently, as the blood rushed from her lips mid sentence. I've seen enough of life to recognize a girl whose heart has just been broken.

She sat there stunned while outside the sky thickened into a dark blanket, only a few rays of light shining through, like holes punched into dense cloth. Then the tears began as she put her hand over her mouth as if to hold in the sound, her disbelieving, betrayed eyes darting about like small frightened birds, afraid that she might be noticed. The concourse was almost empty, a gathering, solitary thunderstorm and I, her only witness. We all just sat there, all alive and all alone, still and seemingly disinterested.


I had this sudden almost uncontrollable urge to get up, go to her and tell her it'd be OK, at least offer her a tissue and a comforting Mom-like smile, a ride somewhere if she needed it. Women can do that, with a touch, with a word. Nonthreatening, we can sometimes convey a heart while totally bypassing the brain. But I didn't move. This was none of my business after all, I tried to convince myself, whilst somehow I was absorbing all her pain and loneliness unwittingly.

She sat there crying for a while in that solitary seat, her land of tears, with a melancholy aura radiating from a face that had just aged 10 years. Then as the tears dried, she quickly got up with her book bag and just go onto the escalator with small timid steps, holding on to the wall for support, like a small child. I had this uneasy feeling of somehow failing to communicate with her, although it was not my affair, never the less - that life was still good, and that the next day would dawn and somewhere in her promising future there would be someone out there who would protect her, who would hurt deeply along with her, if he ever made her cry.

But she was gone, probably through the terminal by now, disappearing into the grey, wet dullness of a late evening rain shower. I sat there, feeling frustrated and upset and could not even understand why. The event I had just witnessed was not earth shattering. On a global scale, compared to the miseries and devastation of Japan and Joplin, conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq, the carnage and desolation caused by man and mother nature both on regular basis, this little melodrama was less than a quick blip on a radar. In the grand scheme of things it never happened. Why should it bother me?

But it did, for I had witnessed a fellow traveler in this life's journey in torment and in spite of my naturally kind heart, I did nothing to offer help, comfort or just a friendly word or the offer of assistance. Yes, it was none of my business, really, but somehow, as a fellow human being, I know it was, and I had failed. I believe that the distress of even one soul echoes in all of us. Whether you feel it touches you, or it passes you seemingly unnoticed, in the disinterest of another busy day, no one is entirely free of the heartaches of the world.


As I walked through the terminal, on out, I look and notice other people, really noticed; a young mother placing her baby in a stroller and securing her in with such care. A young man that stopped to help an old woman whose roller bag just tipped over. Though we may have not signed on for the job, or even want the duty, we are all caretakers. I make my living by picking through the broken pieces of failure and poor choice, to aid the living by conferring with the dead, yet on this night, I was an ineffective as any bystander standing beyond the yellow tape, there only to look and not help.

As I walked out to my rental car, in the bright gloom of a stormy summer night, the sadness of a stranger touched my heart. The ache - albeit diminished until later, in my room alone and thinking back to my day, I thought of her again and my failure to offer at least some form of succor to her ate at me. As I prepare to review a few reports, then head to bed, I softly sing a a lullaby to no one, singing them to sleep in this city that never sleeps.

As the words trail off into the silence of my empty room, I realize that it has never stopped raining this night. Perhaps - after all - the skies have the capacity to weep for even the one small soul who aches.

- Brigid