Vignette - The Old Woman

Before I started running the standard route -- a twenty-four block loop of our Northwest Denver neighborhood -- I used to walk it every morning at about 6:30. And, every morning, half-way through the loop, I would pass an old woman walking in the opposite direction. She was a frail thing, weighing probably no more than eighty or eighty-five pounds. She always -- whatever the weather -- wore a bandanna tied tight -- a double knot I think -- under her chin. She always wore pants, usually a lime green polyester. And, on cold or just chilly days, she wore a cotton jacket (never a coat). Her white, plastic purse was secured to her body with a long strap that criss-crossed her chest, something which I'm sure the good people at the assisted living center (where I surmised her daily walk commenced) admonished all the women would preclude a purse from being snatched in this unkind and dangerous world. She wore thick glasses and her eyes were always -- except for once -- directed upon the sidewalk where her next step would be taken. Her steps were deliberate and each step was preceded by the placement of a cane in front of her, held securely in her right hand.

The old woman and I shared a glance at one another just once. I read her eyes that day and concluded she was absolutely terrified of me; terrified, perhaps, of the world. So, I didn't say anything to her. Usually I say good morning to passersby. But, there was just something that told me not to speak to the old woman that morning. And, I didn't.

I believed (although I had no idea if it was true or not) that the old woman walked each morning to Saint Dominick's on Federal Boulevard for the 7 a.m. mass. I believed or, perhaps fantasized, that the old woman was an old nun whose devotion to a mean and vindictive Church I had long since given-up was the motivation that sent her out into the unkind and dangerous world each morning, there in our shared neighborhood, there upon the same sidewalks we both trudged, day after day after day.

I don't see the old woman any more now that I run the standard route. I wonder about her, though. Is she all right, is she healthy, has she broken a hip, has she had a stroke? And, yes, I wonder, too, why I never spoke to her. Would it have been so hard for me to have said, "Good morning," to the old woman? Would it?