Bringing Comfort

The Ethiopian-Canadian woman
who has embraced me, expressed
her interest in me as a person from
another culture and experience,
has told me of her concerns and
fears for her extended family left
behind, the dangers that they face
through tribal strife, malnutrition.

She greets me like an old friend
whenever I enter the Salvation Army
thrift shop she travels hours toward
from where she lives. The softness in
her voice, her tender smile. She is,
in fact now, an old friend for she has
prayed for me and mine, over the years.

I know this; she has assured me that
this is so. She, a good-hearted, hard
working immigrant who has known
fear and privation, and I, a second
generation, privileged Canadian of a
vastly different ethnic background; our
common humanity binds and blinds us
to the background of differences.

She it is who seeks to bring comfort,
trust and a soothing voice of universal
care to others, her own concerns
baked in a hard crust of experience
set neatly aside, compartmentalized
for the moment in quiet emotional
synthesis bringing her qualities of
warm humanity to rescue others.