|
My
sister told me that she heard about some
little girl who was walking with her
parents across the Golden Gate Bridge the
other day and fell through a nine
and a half inch space between the
walkway and the curb. The kid, a two year
old, fell 150 feet onto some rocks or
something below and died! When my sister
told me the story, she was like, "Hey did
you hear what happened?" Like it was
something funny or weird, but when I heard
it I started to cry. No kidding. I didn't
know the family or anything but I just
kept thinking about what a nightmare that
must have seemed like to them. I mean,
there they all were, just doing this cool
thing... walking across the Golden Gate
Bridge on a sunny Sunday. A mother and
father and two little girls. And the
little girls are holding hands and
laughing. (I'm imaging all of this 'cause
I don't really know what happened, but it
could have been like this) and then maybe
the older one runs ahead and says
something like "Try to catch me." And the
little one loves this game 'cause she and
her sister play it all the time and she
takes off and starts chasing her big
sister. And the parents watch the two
girls as they run ahead. And the parents
feel all this love in their hearts for
their little girls and they are thinking
how pretty and happy both of them are and
how lucky they are to be a family together
on a sunny day on the Golden Gate Bridge.
And then the little girl stumbles and
falls into a gap or something. A place
right on the bridge that unless you bent
down and knew where to look, you'd never
even see it. And this little girl
disappears. Forever.
One
minute she's running in the sunshine,
laughing and trying to catch her sister
and the next minute she is gone, through a
hole no one knew was there, falling
through space and crashing below.
Dead.
Wow.
Unbelievable. It's one thing to be an old
person at the end of your life, like
Grandma Webster, and fly away like a bird
on a peaceful morning breeze. But it's a
whole other story to be two years old and
fall through a hole.
The
names of the parents were in the
newspaper. I looked them up in the San
Francisco phone book and found the
address. I wanted to tell them how sad I
was to hear about what happened. But I
didn't exactly want to write them a
letter, so I instead I did a small
painting, on a three by five card. It was
a picture of a flower growing in the
middle of a forest. I have no idea where
the image came from, but I liked the idea
of it. That even in the middle of a very
shady dark place, a little bit of light
could come through and make a flower
bloom. Maybe like a little bit of
happiness or hope can break through sorrow
and let something in your heart continue
to live. I put the picture in an envelope
and mailed it to that family. I thought
maybe it would make them feel a little
better to know that someone cared. I hope
it did.
|
