On Trust and Falling Orphans
I didn’t expect to see anyone in that empty park on a late Saturday evening, let alone them. A young mother beneath the streetlights bouncing a small, sullen girl on her shoulders as she weaved down the trail with her arms out like airplane wings. I knew why I was there. My shop closed late, and I work early on weekends. There was nothing else to do that balmy summer night but go jogging around Denver’s Washington Park. I’d just finished the two-mile dirt loop and was starting the smaller trail leading to the pull-up bars when I jogged past the two of them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the mother point at me as she turned her head to speak to the girl. I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was something like “See honey, that’s an ex-con. Don’t talk to those.”
I’m not an ex con.
However, I am six foot, bald, and have the kind of face where on several occasions I’ve made eye-contact with a stranger and they’ve immediately apologized to me. I’m used to people turning as I walk behind them and exclaiming “Oh! You scared me!” It doesn’t help that my voice is a low smoker’s monotone, or that I have what is termed “Resting Rage Face,” or that when I work out I look even angrier. Anyone who sees me would assume I’m blasting DMX or Mastodon through my earbuds, but usually I’m nerding out on a science or history podcast. That night, the podcast was about how trees help each other, and I was getting a little emotional.
The question of why the mother and child were out so late there began to fade the further I jogged from them. It was odd but nothing remarkable. I’d nearly forgotten them as I slowed to a walk and approached the pull up bars. Midway through my reps, the mother with the child still on her shoulders veered off the trail and stood a couple feet away watching me. The girl was probably five with long brown hair. I couldn’t make out her features, as they were backlit by streetlights. She looked like anyone in those early years of life. The girl waved at me with a blank expression. I dropped to the ground and clicked off my earbuds.
“Hey, little one,” I waved back “What’s up?”
She was too shy to speak, so the young woman did.
“Sorry if we’re bothering you. Her mom just died…” She opened, almost apologetically “and her dad passed away a couple years ago. So I’m taking care of her now.”
“Oh…” was the best I could do on short notice for this stranger’s tragic news.
“Anyway, her mom was a fitness trainer, so she’s obsessed with watching people work out. When you jogged by she told me to ‘follow that man.’”
I searched for words, still coming up short. My nephew’s a few years younger than this girl and my heart breaks when I think of anything bad happening to him, let alone losing his parents. I’m a grown man and I’m still not prepared for that. Adding to this, one of my best friends passed away nearly a year ago and there’s not a day it doesn’t hurt.
“Do you want a hug?” Finally spilled out in as soft as I can make my voice.
The girl nodded and reached her arms out.
In a nearly abandoned park long after sunset, her caretaker passed a young girl over to a complete stranger towering over them. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her to my chest. She rested her head against my shoulder and squeezed tight in that way only children searching desperately for comfort can. A way to squeeze that yawning void inside a little smaller, if only for a moment.
There was nothing I could say to make this easier for her. I couldn’t comprehend losing your parents so young. However, as I held her I remembered something that always made my nephew smile. Maybe it would make her feel better, if only for a moment.
“Do you want to be tossed into the air?” I asked.
She looked to the caretaker for the OK, who smiled and nodded back. She turned back to me and nodded, her face a little more animated.
“Ok, but you need to help me,” I told her.
I crouched low with my hands under her arms and bounced her feet on the ground as we counted “One…two…” in small jumps. On three, she pushed off the ground. I stood up and launched her into the air.
Backlit by the halogen bulbs as she hit the parabolic arc, I could see she was giggling. Then she began the eight foot descent back toward the concrete, her hair billowing like a torn parachute. It was at this point that a thought occurred:
Hey Paul, remember how you still have that shoulder injury?
This was immediately followed by the much more pressing thought:
Do not drop this fucking orphan, Paul.
I caught her on the way down. She was still giggling. My shoulder was shrieking. Grimacing, I set her back on the ground. She ran back to her caretaker and resumed her place on her shoulders.
Smiling, she waved goodbye to me.
“Be strong, little one,” I told her, not really knowing what else to say.
“And brave,” her caretaker added. “You have to be brave”
“You are brave, little one,” I assured her “braver than I could be.”
They turned and continued along the path. Two weaving airplanes navigating through the dark. I jogged back along the trail with a piercing migraine inside my rotator cuff. However, the rest of me felt light. I’d just experienced a rare, human moment:
Three complete strangers that met long after nightfall, brought together briefly by trust. Trust that all three of us were safe. That we would care about each other.
That no matter how much it hurt now, we would all be ok someday.
If you enjoyed reading this, here are some of my other essays:
My book about hiking 750 miles on a Buddhist Pilgrimage in Japan in 2010, and everything that went wrong along the way
