Day after day, a woman—that barely reaches forty—limps the sidewalk outside my job in round trip. First below the morning sunbeams. The second time carrying her parcels below the burning sun at the zenith.
Time ago she wandered rocking on her quad cane, taking a rest each hundred steps to catch her breath below a leafy tree or a rain-sheltering marquee.
Later, an impatient Chihuahua joined her pilgrimage running and stopping at intervals waiting for its master to catch up. One day, the impetuous little dog pulled her with the strength needed to call everybody’s attention, but in her case, was more than enough to tumble. Unable to stand by herself, she waited until a good Samaritan came into her aid in response of the dog’s barks.
The fall worsened her impaired condition to the point that doctor forbid her of taking the dog out. From that day on, she walked down the streets with another dog—a stuffed one—hanging bellow her arm making the same route. Again and Again.
Today, after more than four years, I watched her in her pilgrimage pushing a walker up the street, with no free arms to carry her stuffed dog this time, but with the same determination to arrive to her remote destination—a couple of blocks ahead.
You can think in blaming the soulless person that allows her to wander around through the dangerous streets of the city. Although, those who have watched her, know that even if for us walking around is simple and irrelevant, for her in her disability, it’s her life.
In our coming and going through life, there will be a time in which we can’t undertake our journey back. It will not matter how far in our trip we have accomplished, but the effort applied on each step to reach our goal.
In the meantime, I will keep beholding her with admiration how she accomplishes a marathon every day.
M. Ch. Landa