Nana

Her face had 117 wrinkles. Her hands had 201 between the pair. She wore a colored silk scarf over her wispy white hair and it draped into her stained kaki jacket. “Nana” was curled in the corner of a closed shop’s door stop. She was selling little Kleenex packets, about 15 sitting in a wicker basket next to another basket with one layer of coins. I walked past her slowly but as I got to the corner her face was imprinted in my head. I went back to “Nana” and knelt down so to be more eye level. She was frail and tiny and worn. She motioned to me that she Kleenex was 5 baht. (Equal to like 20 cents) I gave her a bigger bill then slowly took hold of her porcelain hands. I wanted to scoop her up into my arms and protect her from the world, from the jeering people who walked by and don’t look back (like I almost did.) I wanted to protect her from sickness and hunger and pain. I wanted to hold all her fears in my hands. But as I walked on I knew that God was holding her in his hands. He has her pain and her sickness and her hungry and her worries. He has her in his hands. On the way back to my hotel all I wanted to do was to go back and sit with her, but I knew God was… and he is sitting with all the other lonely people sitting with outstretched hands as well.