I was waiting for the bus on my way to work today, and while lighting a cigarette, I spotted a girl, maybe 16 years old, sitting on a bench on the other side of the road. She had her face buried in her hands and was crying, about what, I don’t know. I was thinking on what to do, when suddenly an old woman approached her, sat down next to her and said, “Now now, what’s the matter, young lady?” The girl raised her face, and the tear streams already marked her face - I couldn’t hear what she said to the old woman, but it was a stream of words, disrupted by sniffs and another small tear outbreak. The old woman put her arm around the girl, and while I normally abhor the tendency of old people to touch others at random, it seemed.. right in that situation. She continued to talk to the girl, about what, I can’t tell, because it drowned in the traffic noise.

After a few minutes, the girl looked at the woman, said something, and when she turned her head back, I could see she smiled. The old lady patted her on the shoulder, smiled and left. The girl leaned back on the bench, smiled for a minute, and then went on her way.

This may sound like a bad piece of social porn, but I think it’s much more valuable than that. People say that one of the defining aspects of a city is anonymity, which with comes alienation with the other inhabitants. And in general, this is true - I lived in the same flat for 5 years now, and I don’t know even the name of one of my neighbors, let alone anything else about them. Still, sometimes, people cross this personal barrier, and while it can be annoying, time-consuming and stressing at times, sometimes, it’s the perfectly right thing to do.

Dear lady, whereever you went, thank you for what you did today. I think it proves again that we define our humanity by our actions, not by our surroundings or preferred lifestyle.