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Eileen Dunst

Misunderstanding

There was an older woman walking down a park sidewalk.  Something she did often.  She saw a boy sitting on a bench in front of a pond in the distance.  From the distance, he looked like a young child sitting by myself- no one in the vicinity.  She thought to herself, “Where are his parents?  He shouldn’t be by himself.”

 

                  As she walked closer, she noticed he was much bigger than she originally thought.  The woman guessed him as a high schooler.  She watched him as she was walking towards him.  She noticed he was throwing something at the ducks that were around the pond.  She instantly got angry.  “If he hurts anyone of those ducks…” she thought.

 

                  The woman continued walking toward him.  Her pace was slightly faster now.  She was almost next to him when she realized he was feeding the ducks.  She felt kind of stupid for jumping to so many conclusions.  Instead of walking by, she sat on the bench with the teenage boy.  The woman kept her head facing the ducks.  She spoke to the boy, “I have to apologize to you.  I saw boys scaring the ducks at this pond yesterday.  I assumed you were doing the same thing.”

 

                  The boy smiled, “That’s alright.  Not many kids would feed the ducks these days, much less teenagers.”  He offered her a piece of bread and they started to feed the ducks together.  They chit chatted about the ducks as they did so.

 

                  Just a few minutes later a middle aged woman walked up to them sounding like she was out of breath.  She realized that the two on the bench were just feeding the birds, pointing, and laughing at the ducks chasing the breadcrumbs.  She quickly relaxed and said, “Hey, don’t waste all the bread here.  I just passed another pond that had more ducks.”

 

                  The boy wrapped the bag of bread.  He looked at the woman sitting next to him, “Want to join my mom and me?”

 

                  “Sure, if you don’t mind,” she responded looking towards the other woman.

 

                  The mom walked slowly with the older lady as her son walked his normal speed towards the next pond.  The mother said to the older woman, “I have to apologize.  In the distance, all I saw was a woman sitting down next to my son.  I started to walk faster.  As I got closer, I saw you two make movements towards each other and I heard distant laughing.  My imagination took the best of me and I started speed walking.  As I got closer, I realized that movement must have been when my son gave you the bread.  Now I feel silly for running.”

 

                  “Don’t feel bad,” said the older woman.  “I sat next to him to apologize for my assumptions. Perspective isn’t everything.”

 

                  As they sat down on the bench by the boy, the son asked the older woman, “Want to join us tomorrow?”

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