The Woman in the Waiting Room

While sitting in the relatively empty waiting room of the clinic this morning, waiting to get my legs worked on by the osteopath, a woman of about my age seated close to me struck up a conversation. Naturally, it turned to children, and there was no easy way out of mentioning the death of my daughter, so I told her, briefly. Then she said how she will never get over her own grief and volunteered about how she had been abused by her grandfather from ages 10-15, and how even today, almost 40 years later, it hurts her deeply inside. She started sobbing and I held her for a moment. Then she told me how she felt better now. As I was called in by the nurse, the woman and I shook hands and exchanged first names. Later, sitting in the patient room waiting some more, I realized that while my leg injury was not the cause of "good coming from a bad thing," a way of thinking I do not much care for, that nevertheless, I am pleased how the subtle workings of the universe brought us together this day - the woman in the waiting room and me.