The Reason

Yesterday, I was trapped in traffic beside the parking lot outside of the grocery store when I witnessed a woman helping two handicapped children into her car. The entire process seemed to take forever; it was arduous. There were walkers involved, and wheel chairs, and there was physical lifting and eventually people were waiting for the woman’s parking space. Yet, despite the difficulty of the situation, the woman bore the task with an easy smile on her face and an aura of nearly palpable patience.

And I realized something.

I realized that this woman was the one I was writing for. It’s for her – and the nurse in the emergency room and the soldier skirting IED’s in the desert and the eighth grade teacher in the under-funded middle school and the student working two full-time jobs. It’s for these women and all of the others, my sisters in soul and spirit and an unwillingness to give in, that I set my pen to paper and create other worlds.

I imagine these women stealing away to some rare, quiet corner with paragraphs between their hands, escaping for only a few precious moments so they may continue the task of life renewed, refreshed, and restocked with hope.

You are why I do what I do. And you always will be.