A mother with two boys make their way across a parking lot to the entrance of the mall. The boys are dressed in white sweaters, hair combed, shoes clean. They walk ahead but turn back often to check on their mother.
The mother uses a walker. Halts with each step. Her legs look weighted as though she drags a thick chain. Her arms tremble as she pulls herself ahead half-step by half-step.
When they come to the entrance she sits down on the narrow chair that walkers have and smiles at her boys who hurry with some excitement through the glass doors.
She sits beyond the path of foot traffic, waiting, gazing across the parking lot above a line of mature spruce trees and over toward the low mountains northeast of the mall.
After a while she reaches for the handles of the walker, then stops, stills herself, places her hands palm down on each leg and smooths away some spasms and goes back to watching the sky.
And every so often she turns to the glass doors and her eyes, glistening light, watch for her sons. And every so often the sun looks through the banks of cloud and rests on her face, and all the faces going in and out of the glass doors.
Majesty indeed! Like the widow observed at a place of worship among the wealthy giving her mite, this mother is at a place of worship giving all she has and being similarly blest.
Thank you Ray, so appreciate your close reading.
And this woman, like the widow, unaware of being observed, nevertheless becomes a blessing to those with eyes to see….
Well put. Thanks Sam.