a little girl

Eyes are the round windows to the heart. The open holes into our heart.

Her face was oddly pale and she was slim and petite for how maturely she carried herself. Her mother looked distracted because her little brother was making a fuss in the seat of the cart. Her older sister was obviously in charge, pushing the cart and keeping her in line.
The store wasn't busy at that moment and I didn't have anything else to do, so I walked over to the line they were in and began bagging the quarts of milk.
When I got out a second bag for the smaller boxes of macaroni and cereal bars she pushed past her sister's guarding frame and reached up on her tippy-toes to grab a product and put it in the brown paper bag.

I looked over, surprised. I hadn't ever had a kid so eager to get in on the work. As my eyes fell to her level I was taken back. My heart gasped as her soul leaped through her eyes and brushed roughly against mine.
Her eyes were starved; barren and desperately pleading for approval and understanding. She so wanted to help me. But more than that: she wanted me to love her.

Little children are the most real people in society today. They have not learned the walls that adults put up to hide their frailty and vulnerability. They don't know that it is not polite to throw your soul onto another begging shamelessly for attention and to receive joy and approval and kindness. They don't realize that people are supposed to pretend. Especially not at the age of five or six.

I realized there was something different about her. In the split second when she threw her soul against mine I felt fire pierce my heart. I hurt all over. Thoughts of my little siblings and my love for them came flooding over me. The way I felt growing up, the love I wanted I saw she did too.

In a strange move, I put the bag I was packing on the floor. I handed her the few remaining items.  She eagerly placed them in choice spots and smiled up at me, so grateful and so happy.
I hoisted the heavy bag from the counter and placed it in her mother's cart and told her she could lift the bag on the floor.  Her big sister (either out of a similar need for acknowledgement or control) grabbed it from her and put it in the cart herself.  She looked at me for approval and I smiled and told her it was good.  I smiled at the little boy in the seat, and turned back to the little girl.  She looked crestfallen; her sister having taken all the glory.  I got down to her level and high-fived her and told her she did amazing.

Her eyes lit up and the ache in my heart only got worse.  Her mother hustled them all out of the store and she didnt look back.  All I could think about was my younger siblings and my younger self.  I knew exactly how she felt.  Alone, even though she had siblings and parents and 'family.'  Longing for something unknown and nameless even though she is 'loved' and told she is 'loved.'


I could not get her out of my mind all the rest of that day and week and even now (a month later... as I finish all the writing that I have been storing up) the mark of where she was, the burn-mark she left, makes me question whether she was safe and properly cared for.  I prayed for her, and I dont pray much these days.  There was nothing else I could do.  I cried for her, and for the child I used to be, and for those who dont have a random grocery-store-bagger to make them feel special and useful and important.

I want to see her again and talk with her.  I want to be there every time she comes in the store.  I want to help her.  I want to love her.  I want her eyes to be beautiful and shining.  I want her to be happy. 
And I going crazy?