When I see someone cry, I usually cry too.

This afternoon while heading out to approve a client's proof at the printer's, we drove by our dirt patch. We do this often. It's good to check in on it, see what's happening. Which is nothing right now. It sits quietly, patiently waiting for backhoes and cement and wood and nails.

But today, it had a visitor.

Someone I didn't recognize was sitting in her car across the street looking at it, while I had stopped in the middle of the road a few houses away to talk to some of my neighbors. She backed up and pulled away, turning the corner toward the water. I followed, I was curious. She then turned down the lane behind our house, got out of her car and headed toward our dirt patch. This got me more curious, so I turned the car around and headed back to the front of the property to see if she was walking around. She was. I pulled over, rolled down the window and nicely asked, "Can I help you?"

"Oh, I'm just looking around. I used to live here," she said. "Cathy?!?!" She smiled widely with my recognition of her and walked over to the car to talk.

It was Mr. D's girlfriend. The one who lived with Mr. D for almost 30 years and loved him dearly. She had come to just look and think and unexpectedly we both ended up in the street, holding hands, looking at the patch of dirt where her house once stood and cried. She wasn't crying out of sadness for the missing house. She was crying over her missing life. Her life with Mr. D, her peace, her contentment. Her memories of the animals, the trees, the flowers, her love.

She talked about the animosity and trouble she received from Mr. D's family, some of it which is still not settled it seems. I didn't understand every thing she said, but I understood her grief. Her grief over losing Mr. D, and her grief over what ensued after his death. She said it was actually easier for her to see the empty lot, than her old house. The empty lot spoke of promise, new life, new love and happiness. She was so glad to learn, way back when we bought it, that it was going to a young family and someone from the neighborhood, that knew her and Mr. D.

I was very relieved to hear her speak those words. I knew she was still in town and that she occasionally drove by to look at the house, and I worried that it would upset her to see the house destroyed. It turns out that the destruction of the house has begun to help her heal, and bring her some closure that she so desperately needs.

I hope that by listening to her today and sharing her tears I helped give her a bit of peace tonight. Because, by listening to her today and sharing her tears, she gave ME a bit of peace tonight.

The past and the future unexpectedly collided in the present, and I'm thankful to the fates that put us together today.