A Girl by the Road

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There’s a young girl outside, standing by the road.

I often revisit the dusty roads of my memories; once in a while, it’s a purposeful journey. More often, however, a wandering trek through the passageways of my experience comes without necessarily any approval from me, or any real intent. Such has been the unfortunate case, once again. So much for my peace, which admittedly has been disturbed. It comes, and on occasion, it goes.

But seemingly, it took so little; this time it’s just a girl who is standing by the road. In her early teens, hands clasped behind her back, head tipped downward, watching her bare feet as she pushes pebbles and grasps at the stunted roadside dandelions with her toes. And every once in a while she steals a furtive look at the long stretch of country road that runs by both her home and mine, peering one direction and then the other, but favoring just one. She’s looking for someone, no doubt a boy of about the same age whom I’ve seen before, when he’s come to call. She has been out there for a while now, occasionally stepping inside, but each time, returning to the side of the road before many minutes have passed.

Could there be a reason, I wonder, why simply observing someone whose heartstrings are being tugged, pulls in turn on mine? After all, men are raised to be comparatively insensitive. That’s an opinion, backed by a tsunami of fact. Strength is expected of us, but then we are also blamed for it. Ours is the gender expected to train and to take up arms, to leave behind all that we’ve lived and believed, and to kill our fellow man. Circumstances and the realities of violent conflict and war sometimes necessitate it. And then, if we have survived and we get to come home, we are expected to leave all of those behaviors behind and to function like all other civilized persons. But it doesn’t take a war; the conflict might have been on the street. Those of us who have not seen combat must live and work and compete with those who have. And in either case we are dysfunctional if we cannot nurture our children, serve as loving spouses and do what’s right for our families. Sensitivity does have its place, after all. I’m only being sensitive.

Or maybe it’s something else.

Memory can be a deeply cruel thing, and despite my age, I am both blessed and cursed with an extremely vivid memory. I recall as if it was only moments ago, the first time I experienced the sensation of being struck in the face by an older boy who was intent on a fistfight. I remember that he wanted the change in my pocket, and that he took it. I recall the resultant rage and resolve that led to my learning to deliver the same, how to clench a fist and how not to, and discovering that I had the strength and speed to compete. As long as the other kid wasn’t too big, of course. I have similar memories I am unwilling to share, but such things as those are just one side of the coin.

The other side is the one revisited this evening. As a young man, I quickly learned that I am no less vulnerable to attachment and to pain than members of the opposite sex. I’ve been left behind. I have made unpleasant but, I thought, necessary choices and thus, delivered the same. While perhaps an unavoidable part of life, it can be and has sometimes been unpleasant. That’s putting it quite mildly.

I am no longer a young man. I am not in a position to counsel the young girl whose roadside vigil has caused me to sit down to write. And even if I happened to be her father, I’m not sure I would try to tell her anything. Some things have to be learned the hard way. One would hope that sooner or later, the hard lessons would stop coming. But they don’t. In fact, we don’t learn such things very well at all.

For in my own way, I have been by the side of the road, and more than once. I have experienced the disappointment she is presently feeling. I’ve also been in the place of the young man who has not appeared. He’s made a decision I’ve had to make, and would very much prefer never to have to repeat. It seems to be bothering me, far more than it should.

On most evenings in this pastoral valley, the five-toned horn of a passing train, blaring through the haze of the river and echoing through vine-covered trees, is melodious and welcome music to the ears. But tonight its descending wail is plaintive and mournful, the evening air, damp and sullen. I try to tell myself that a life without regret would be no life at all. I try to tell myself, it’s just that I’ve opened my heart to emotion, an effort to help me to write. If that’s all it is, I’ve done a terrific job of it.

Darkness will fall shortly. She may as well go inside and try to make herself busy at something, even though I know it won’t help.

He isn’t coming.


It comes without warning. I whisper softly.
Father. Please forgive me.


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