Lost

I saw something on my walk home today that reminded me of one of the worst things I have ever seen.

It was winter and I was driving to school in Connecticut, it was a saturday and there was fresh snow on the ground. Connecticut College has a beautiful campus - on a hill, old buildings, nice green, and the school itself is within an arboretum. I believe it was early in the morning, no one was on the roads.

Driving up the hill I see someone in the snow, she is ten feet from the main, plowed, road. As I was making the right turn I can see her out of my driver's side window. She is blind. She has her stick and a backpack. Her face was a mixture of fear, terror, loss, and frustration. Tears were running down her cheeks. She was wildly moving her stick from side to side, stomping in the snow. It takes me a moment longer as I was driving to realize what had happened. She was lost - absolutely entirely lost - 10 feet from the street. The snow was so thick that there was no path for her to follow, there were no telling curbs or sidewalk or grass. She had gotten turned around and there was nothing left but painful struggling.

By the time I had I had turned around she had gotten help from another passerby.

I usually travel with a map, a cell phone, or in a populace area. There have been times where I have gotten turned around in a rural area with no map, phone, or person near by. I speed up, heart beats a little faster - it is a terrible feeling even though I know I will be fine. I can't imagine or grasp the idea of being completely alone and without help.... where nothing is familiar.

Back when I people watched online in personal adds there was a question about a person's most humbling moment. Most people used humbling and humiliating and embarrassing as synonyms - "I went swimming and my shorts fell off... "

Seeing the look in her face and body was one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had.