To the elder journeying alone,

I hope that it was my limited line of sight or the circumstances on that day that had pierced my heart so deeply, and not your reality. I hope I had only caught you in a lonely moment, and not a lonely life. I hope, selfishly (less for your sake, and more for mine) that love seeps into every corner of your world. 

I was sitting in the arrivals section with flowers in my hand, waiting to catch a glimpse of my mom, whom I hadn’t seen in months. Before leaving, I had put her favourite dish on the stove, prepared a little welcome basket with all her favourite snacks, and sprinkled her favourite scent on the guest bed’s sheets. I reached half an hour early so she wouldn’t have to wait, and so, when she emerged from the grey, worn airport, she would have someone waiting for her with a bouquet of love and arms full of affection. 

I was waiting for that first rush upon seeing her, when my body would react before my mind, my legs would run to safety, and my arms would wrap around her tightly. I was waiting for that moment of euphoria where you find a missing piece of your home, your heart, right in front of you, after all that time apart. My heart would finally breathe a sigh of relief.

But I saw you first, and instead, my heart slowly began to fracture. You, with your two big black bags stacked on the trolley cart. You, with a head of hair as white as snow and as frail as a dandelion. You, with wrinkles of experience that spoke of adventures the world would never know of. You, with your back hunched over from carrying the weight of all those years and a walking stick as your sole companion. 

In a frame where lovers were reuniting and families were becoming whole, I saw a lone man walking the brightly lit corridor alone. I noticed you the minute you walked into the hall, and my gaze followed you until you left the airport, forgetting my mom for a minute. I was waiting, perhaps, for someone to run up to you, give you a big hug and a kiss, and melt into you. I was waiting for someone’s eyes to light up and their world to become brighter when they saw you. I was waiting for someone to take your bags and guide you with gentle hands towards a car waiting for you. I waited for someone to bring you flowers, too, if only a single daffodil. I waited for someone, anyone, to hold you dear. Selfishly, (for my own sake and less for yours perhaps), I waited for love to grasp you as you so deserved.  

With all those years under your belt, with all that you most likely have seen, felt, loved, and hated, I refused to believe that life would leave you so desolate. I glimpsed in you my own two grandfathers, and I thought how my heart would shatter into minuscule itsy bitsy pieces if they, at their tender age, had to lift a single bag alone and receive such a frosty welcome. And yet, here you were, having travelled all this distance carrying all this burden on your own. I thought of my grandfathers and how my heart would shatter if no one held their hand on a journey home. And so, my heart shattered and it ached for a stranger I never got the chance to know. In you, I saw my grandfathers, and in that moment, all my love for them became my love for you.

I didn’t know the life you had walked or the things that you had done, but I wondered how life could be so cruel to leave you all alone after all the years you had given it. How come you had nobody to hug you at the gate? How come you had nobody to carry you home? And I thought perhaps this was your comeuppance, your penance for having lived a bitter existence. But the softness of your shadow spoke only of tenderness and warmth. There was no coarseness to your figure, no rough edges to find, just a gentleness mellowed with time.

And my heart continued to shatter, it cried and wailed and whimpered, perhaps because it is still too young and frail to accept the world as this cruel a place. In those three and a half minutes that it took you to slowly, courageously, venture out into the cold, cold world, my heart went from being so full to completely hollow. So I prayed. I prayed that it was only till here that you were journeying alone. I prayed that there was still love on the other side, that it just didn’t have the courage or the ability to meet you yet. I prayed and hoped that the world was not so hopeless, yet. 

So, if you ever get a chance to read this, know that even if no one else in the world has space in their heart for you, that day, a stranger did. In that moment, she loved you like her own, and an affection grew, housed in one chamber of her fragile heart, forever. If you ever get a chance to read this, I hope you come back to tell me that I caught you in a lonely moment, not a lonely life, and that love seeps into every corner of your world.  If you ever get a chance to read this, I hope it’s surrounded by friends and family that love you to death, who await you always, on the other side of the exit door. 

With all the love I can muster, 
A stranger who will hold you close, always.