“When there is pain,
there are no words.”
Toni Morrison

I reached up to the Safeway shelf
and grabbed the box of tissues,
and as I did, I heard a growl
from someone who had issues.

“You took the last damn box, old man!”
Um, yes, it seems I did.
“I’ve got a nasty cold,” she barked.
The woman flipped her lid.

She told me I was heartless,
that I’d surely go to Hell.
Because I got the Kleenex?
I could see she wasn’t well.

Before I had the chance to hand
the tissues to my “friend,”
she glared at me, and with her words
attacked me once again.

“You seem to think, because you’re male,
that you should have your way.”
I looked at her with kindness,
but I didn’t know what to say.

“You chauvinistic idiot!
I hope you die and rot!”
I tried to gain rapport with her
and said, I sure hope not.

The fire in her eyes revealed
that there was something more.
Clearly, she was hurting deeply,
right down to her core.

Excuse me, Ma’am,… are you okay?
She stopped and looked at me.
Her eyes welled up with shameful tears,
her pain was clear to see.

As tears rolled freely down her cheeks,
she told me what was wrong.
Her 14-year-old daughter
was quite ill and didn’t have long.

“Leukemia,” she said to me.
“We’re counting down the days.
My grief is overwhelming.
It shows up in many ways.”

I handed her the tissue box,
and said I understood,
though I’m not really sure I did.
I did the best I could.

It never was about the tissues,
from the very the start.
This woman, she was hurting.
She had a broken heart.

A good reminder for us all:
Don’t judge what people do,
for there’s no way for us to know
what they are going through.

©kmc2013
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