On Saturday, I watched a woman in crutches, the very severe kind that wrap themselves around the user's arms, negotiate her way painfully around the small indoor mall where I sat under large skylights enjoying a light breakfast with my husband.
A man, her husband (?) followed this woman, reading from a book he held upright and keeping a good pace with her. Her hips swung exaggeratedly back and forth, moving her legs step by step. The couple moved in rhythm, determined in their own way.
Around them, women with small children chatted; white-haired senior citizens moved slowly and people sat in lounge chairs, engrossed in their cell phone screens or in the Sunday paper.
After a half hour, we went into the mall's movie theater and watched "The King's Speech."
George VI had a great many problems to manage, stuttering being not the least among them. What a time to have lived in! The end of the world seemed so near!
In the film, after his father has died, Bertie tells Lionel Logue that, on his deathbed, his father said Bertie (despite his impediment) was the strongest of all his sons.
After the movie, I thought about the woman in crutches, about Bertie the stutterer.
At least on Sunday, it seemed to me that the strongest among us are those who have the heaviest burdens to bear.
On a daily basis, why shouldn't that be more obvious?
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