Friday, April 4, 2008

"so today, something grabbed my heart."

"first your text was sweet to wake up to. u
romantic u!

and then, I was walking down the stairs this
morning--to the subway platform. And this puerto
rican guy in front of me had three little boys...
one was around 7, one around 5, and the teeny one
was maybe almost 3. The teeny one was struggling
to walk in all his 'big boy' clothes, and he hit
his little leg on the hard metal step. He started
to cry...really hard...like the kinda of cry that
has no sound at first. But I could tell, even
though I was behind them, that the little one was
crying, because his shoulders were hunched high.
He was so small, I wanted to pick him up and tell
him 'it'll be ok' because his dad just seemed to
ignore him, and said 'c'mon, hurry up.'

Finally, I walk past them, but look back--trying
to get the dad's attention, so that he can sort of
acknowledge his youngest son. I know it's none of
my business to interfere...but still, I don't know
why i wanted to fix the little boy. So, the dad
looks up, and kinda gives me a knowing smile, like
the type that says 'Okay, I know I'm fucking up,'
and he seems like a good guy. So finally, he checks
on the little boy--and he cries even harder--as if
he craves the attention, and knows that if he stops
crying, the attention might go away. Then, I say
'awww Sweetie, don't cry.' and everything stops.
The little boy freezes in place, and looks at me
with the biggest, tear-filled eyes ever...his eyes
were too big for his 2-foot body. But he listens,
he stops crying. And I tell him he's 'a very brave
boy.' And he follows me with his eyes, even as
they pass me...he looks back at me.

He grabbed my heart.

Anyway, how are you today?"

4 comments:

etoilee8 said...

My heart has been swimming in emotion today. This has just brought it back down from space. Thank you. xoxo.

£ said...

and now, he has grabbed mine. what a cute/touching story. :)

now i'm all emo!

WendyB said...

Totally OT but I just want to tell you that I had a dog named Chubbs!

Papier Girl said...

:-)

Wendy: Chubbs is my nickname from my mom--but I think it works quite well as a dog's name!