All the lonely people...

I sit in a small restaurant, picking away at my fetucini alfredo and looking outside, watching the summer rain fall. It always seems to rain on days like these. I'm having one of my down days. All I want to do is sit and ponder silently, the last thing I want to do is talk to anyone.

As I sip my drink and push a sprig of parsley around my plate, hoping that the rain will stop, an older woman comes in. She sits down at a small table near mine, and smiles at me warmly. I nod absently and go back to staring out the window, willing the rain to stop so I can return home to my cats and my beloved DVD player. However, the rain continues to pour, and the waiter comes to my table with a dessert menu. Ah, what the hell. I order a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee.

"It's my birthday today..." says the old woman shyly. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, attempting a smile.

"Happy birthday..."

"My sons used to take me out to dinner every year." There's a hint of sadness in her voice, but I'm too dense to pick up on that at the time. "That's nice..." I finish off my dessert, signal for the check, and make a quick exit, leaving the woman to her own thoughts, staring sadly down at her garden salad.

Looking back on that day, I feel sad and ashamed. That woman didn't care about her dinner, she just wanted someone to talk to, anyone. She seemed so small, sad, and alone...abandoned. Were her sons in Afganistan, or Lebanon? Or did they just stop caring once they "made it big"? Maybe they now cared more about their work than their family, and their mother was sweeped under the carpet, completely forgotten. Or maybe they were a few of the unlucky souls who made up the statistics.

I pray that someone was more compassionate than me, that someone listened to her and kept her company. I pray that she doesn't remain forgotten forever, that when her time finally comes to leave the world of the living, that she is surrounded by the ones she loves.

It's unlikely that she will ever see this message, but I will still appologize here...I'm sorry for my ignorance, my selfishness, and my insensitivity. I'm sorry that I wasn't the sympathetic ear you needed, or a shoulder to lean on.