When we first met it was she who made the first move, a beatific smile beaming at me as she asked whether the little girl at my side was my granddaughter.  That child born to our daughter is no longer a little girl, and I am no longer her daytime caregiver.  And the woman who had greeted me so effusively, in such a familiar manner those many years ago no longer has the same physical appearance as she had back then.

Her face, the colour of hot coffee with its lively gleam has been washed lately of its vibrancy as though dipped in cream, and the appearance of healthy middle-age has been altered by the presence of numerous deep creases running along that familiar face.  When we first met I thought she was in the late stages of pregnancy; her midsection gave that unmistakable appearance.  But it was mistaken; her belly was certainly extended - hugely - but she was not pregnant.  It remains in that condition to this day.  I have never enquired, it is too delicate a matter, I haven't the right, nor the wish to upset her by such a question.

Back then, when we first met, she might have recognized something deep within me that echoed something in her.  I responded in like vein, warming to her immediately.  She had asked about where I was from: Canada, I said, born in Canada, though my parents were from Poland and Russia originally.  Jewish, I said to her, and she brightened, said she thought there was some Jewish blood in her heritage.  She was from Eritrea, or Sudan or Mauritius, I don't now remember and would be too embarrassed to ask her.

Several years ago she was very upset, telling me about some of her relatives back home, of the constant strife there, of those who had been killed - of her hopes that others would survive.  Last year she had a fright, her husband had collapsed and was diagnosed with heart problems. He was under doctors' care and was prescribed a medication protocol.  For months afterward he just sat vegetatively, recovering, at home, unable to work.  And then when he was well enough to work, he was unable to find employment other than an odd job lasting a few weeks here and there.  Of course I commiserated, and with feeling.

She never fails to ask about the welfare of our granddaughter.  She knows too how concerned I am about the well-being of our daughter, she of the volatile temper, and the lack of serendipity in life whose own employment, as a single mother with many responsibilities is as unstable as her psychological state all too often.

My friend lives quite a distance from the Salvation Army thrift shop where she works daily.  She commutes by a series of buses from her home over on the Quebec side to Ontario where her employment is, quite distant from the provincial borders.  She spends at least three hours daily travelling from home to work, work to home.  But she wouldn't think of looking for employment elsewhere; she enjoys her job, likes working for the Salvation Army.  And quite simply, rent is cheaper in Quebec.

We dropped by the Sally Ann thrift shop yesterday after running a few errands following our ravine walk.  She informed me than that her husband had suffered a heart attack.  He is resting now, at home.  She exudes uncertainty and hope in equal measure.  I sympathize and feel truly dreadful about her situation.  I wonder sometimes how we could help her, but I feel also she has no wish to have any assistance from us, that to offer anything would be to insult her.

Perusing the shelves, my husband found a number of books he took possession of, and I now have another book by Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey, an author who has a magic way with words and describing human frailties and emotions.  Another by Ronald Kessler, The Terrorist Watch, and yet another by the mistress of the short-story form - Alice Munro, in Runaway.  Two Canadian writers sandwiching an American; two works of creative fiction and one non-fiction.

I always come away from my encounters with her feeling pensive at the very least, guilty for how we are able to live compared to her poverty and the circumstances in her life that tore her away from her original community, her heritage, the comfort of her culture.  I weep for her.  And I weep for myself as well, wishing some things in life could be otherwise than they are.

Do I have reason to weep, I wonder....