Despair

photo: Cobus Botes

Walking on the beach today, I saw two women; both of them fully clothed, except that the one of them wore only a green bra on the top half. She was also the one being soothed, being calmed out of the water by the other. They sat back down on the beach, and the one, the one that needed to be calmed, buried her head in her hands and sobbed. A man from the hill above the beach called down to them, angry? worried? exasperated? which they ignored. Only the other one looked up to acknowledge him briefly. Another woman, also taking a walk that day, stopped to talk to them, maybe to see if they needed help, but soon kept on walking. She even had a smile on her face as she passed me further down the beach. I didn’t stop. I assumed the other woman had been shooed away or assured that they didn’t need help. But I also didn’t stop because I was scared. I was scared to become a part of something I wasn’t meant to be a part of. I think I did the right thing. I can assume the woman in the green bra was not in danger from that man on the hill. I can assume they didn’t need me to call an ambulance or lend a hand carrying her to help. I assumed these things because of the other woman walking on the beach that day. They didn’t need her. But the closer I got to them and the closer I‘d gotten to making a decision about what to do, the more I recognized the despair on her face. If that were me, I’d want to be left alone. Yet, once I’d passed them by I couldn’t help but feel the coward.

Lately the kind of movie I’m attracted to is the story of how one person (because they’d taken the time, because they’d noticed, because they wanted to help, because they didn’t mind their own business), one person changed the life of another. (See A Small Act.) Because they stopped. I admire these characters so much, not only because of their selflessness and how drastically a life can be turned around when someone shows concern, but because I haven’t been able to grab hold of an opportunity to care for a stranger in this way. It’s laziness and apathy, fear and self-absorption. Without looking for it, I’m hoping as I go along, I can impact more people in a positive way, and be more open to letting others influence my own life.