...Alone...

I see an elderly woman eating alone: wine glass, half sandwich, open book. I have seen her before – always alone. I see her and wonder so many things. Perhaps because I am there alone as well, I wonder if I’m seeing an aged version of me.


She looks content enough, but there’s a subtle look in her eyes that says otherwise. I only catch a glimpse that betrays a longing. There’s something sad, perhaps missing. And I wonder if she is eating alone for one meal that day or all of them. I wonder if she has had to eat alone for a season or a lifetime.

This second thought is the one that really gets me thinking – almost fretting- that indeed, one day, my diet coke and grading will be replaced with white wine and a novel, and someone more than half my age will hope she isn’t looking at her own personal prophecy.