A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

Empathy
By Trish Woolwine
November 27, 2007

My mother loved to people watch.
She would sit in the mall while the rest of us shopped,
And just observe their comings and goings.

Imagining their lives.

"That poor man," she would say,
As we drove down the streets of the city.
"He is using an old beach towel to stay warm
instead of a coat."

"Look at those children."
She pointed as we passed a park.
"Their momma needs to make them wear their shoes
when they play outside."

The lights of the houses just coming on,
As we passed in the twilight
On the way home from our shopping trip,
Would bring her to conjecture,
"I wonder who lives there?"
And we would all look
At the golden slices of people sitting down to dinner,
Blue glow of illuminated television sets,
Old dogs barking in the yard.

I would imagine along with her
Though I never let her know it.

Were those people in that house like us?
Or did they get drunk and beat their children?
Were they simple country folk who baked their own bread?
Or rich socialites eating lobster and champagne.

Were they happy?
Or facing foreclosure or divorce or death?

Her musings on other people's lives
Embarrased and irritated me
Much as any questions she had about my own teenage life
Seemed to be none of her business.

She has been gone over a year now,
And her watch has ended, as mine is beginning.

I still hear her voice in my head
As I observe the comings and goings
Of the stray people of this world.

I see a lone soul sitting at an overpass,
Will Work for Food sign in his hands,
And imagine the cold desolation of the steel blue streets,
Dark and misty, steam rising from the grates,
As he picks up a screw-top pint at the liquor store
And disappears into the night.

He raises his head and catches me watching him
From my car, as I wait for the light to change.
Before he looks down again,
I see reflected in his eyes
What he may see in mine.

A home,
Gray smoke rising above the chimney in the violet evening sky.
Golden light spilling out over the frost-covered ground,
As the warm bread comes out of the oven.

About the author:
I am a full time real estate agent and part time failed writer from Nashville Tn. A Journalism/PR major from The University of Tennessee and former newspaper hack, I just started writing again after 20 years of raising boys and dogs.