Gestures

This evening I took Coop out on one of our usual walks around the neighborhood. It is exceptionally beautiful outside tonight, and the streets were swarming with happy Portlanders riding bikes, walking, eating at sidewalk tables. I am feeling exceptionally melancholy this evening, and so the Coop and I walked slowly, stopping occasionally to let strangers admire him, or to admire the flower gardens of strangers. I felt like a stranger here in my neighborhood of the last several years, in fact, a stranger to myself, as we walked. I was listening to possibly the saddest music in the known universe, almost home, past a tiny little girl and her mother who were doing something in the flowers they have planted in the parking strip next to their house. Then I heard the smallest voice say something to me, and I stopped the music to turn to her, expecting she wanted to pet my dog. She had in her hand a daisy, and she said to me, "I want to give you this flower." I leaned down to take it from her tiny hand, looked her in the eye, and told her thank you. "You are welcome," she said seriously, maintaining eye contact with me. I then turned to walk away with the flower in my hand, moved beyond words by her gesture, wondering how she knew it was just what I needed in that moment.