Scene from a Mall 10 comments

By A.G. Harmon

I had every intention of writing a film review, but I saw a little girl on the way to the theater. She has changed my plans dramatically. In truth, I assume she has changed many plans in her short life. She could be no older than four, by my estimation, and the parents on either side of her, each with a hand, could be no more than thirty—probably less. But among them, between them, what all they must have learned over the past four years. It would draw the reverence of the oldest and the wisest, what they must know now—from the saints themselves—let alone from me.

What was wrong with the child, I cannot rightly say. She was too small, too frail, her skin too translucent. Her walk was ungainly, as though she were pulling her feet from the floor with great effort—like someone walking through standing water or knee-high sand.

But what was most arresting were her eyes—weak, rheumy, and unfocused, she might have been roused from a deep sleep, disoriented and caught between slumber and consciousness. None of those things were the case; she was in a loud, brightly-lit mall, in suburban D.C., in the middle of a nice afternoon. Throngs of people coursed about her, but her world was only those on either side.

Even so, she did not seem sure of it. She had the look of one still unformed—brought into the sun too soon, shoved too roughly from a place where she had been dreaming.

As for them, you have seen these people everywhere—this man and this woman. They were sharp. They were fit. Their hair was cut well. Their clothes were casual but smart—the latest fashion, the best quality. Their faces were refined and intelligent; they went to good schools and had done well in their jobs. Their house was where it should be; their car would never see 40,000 miles. Their patrimony was privilege. Their parents looked as they did.

And yet, for all that, what stood out most was the way they cosseted this hurt child, and the grief they bore in tandem with their love. There was something wrong—too strange to say what—and they had stopped for a moment in the mall to see it, yet again, both in her and in each other.

This quiet sorrow; how often and in how many places has it halted them? How many circumstances have brought it to the fore?

This time, it was the girl’s sweater. She was hot, they had decided; she had not said so, I’m sure, but they had felt it. The woman’s hand went to the girl’s brow, then around to the nape of her neck; the man whispered something soft. And then, with a joint effort, they set to the difficult task of pulling the expensive wool jersey over the confused child’s head.

Between the two of them--the father working on one arm, the mother on the other—they gently managed to raise the delicate hands, bend the elbows, keep the head steady, and draw the sweater off. The girl blinked, stared—I wondered for a moment if she was blind—and rocked unsteadily on her feet. For a moment, she had mislaid both of the hands she’d been holding, was cut loose from those who had piloted her way, and looked as lost as a bird blown out to sea.

I saw all this from behind, never stopping as I drew even with them—but I confess I had to turn around to see the rest. The mother and father caught her up again, each with a hand, and continued on.

Do they know what they are? What they mean? Do they know what they do? What bravery this is. The girl is ennobled by them, and they by her—but God, what a road they walk. Daily, they must worry. What is too much to ask of her, they have to wonder, and what is too little? Can we go in this place? Can she stand it that long? What do we say, when we meet someone new? And most terrible of all, how can we provide for her, and how should that be?

I knew a couple of modest means whose son was paralyzed in an accident. It was fear of their own deaths—without provision for the boy—that took their peace. These people cannot even see where they are going—what lies ahead—for her health, for her happiness, for the way that their own concerns must always transect with their child’s.

I am told there are tests now, to determine whether a baby will bring you these griefs. You need not bear what they do, I’m told. And if there are not screens for this girl’s malady at present, there soon will be. But in my view, these people—man, woman, and child—bear each other up in a way that passes the only test that has ever mattered, or ever will.

I have failed to come anywhere near explaining what I saw. I have done them no justice. But if it was not love walking past me in the mall, then such a thing never had a name.