Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

by Kit, 17, Canada
I live in a town with beautiful sunsets. The sea comes up and caresses the coast and the sun sinks over the mountains across the ocean.

I live in a town where almost everyone has almost every material thing they want.  I live in a town where people have forgotten to watch the sun go down.

I’ve spent a lot of my life dealing with grief – mostly my own – grief I do not and will not dwell on.  I’ve learned to appreciate the sunsets in my perfect little town.

Despite our privileged lives I have discovered that many people who live, and work, and love alongside me are very unhappy. I’ve held many tear stained cheeks on my shoulder in that perfect little town.

I am an actor, and on my way home from a rehearsal some months ago, I saw a woman sitting on a hill crying.  I kept walking, thinking to myself, “Why isn’t anyone there to hold her?” 

I got about a block away, turned around and walked back up the hill.  She was clearly upset and like most people, ashamed of it.  As I approached she watched me warily and said, “You walked all the way back up that hill for me?” 

I simply grinned and told her that people should never sit alone too long when they’re crying.

I never got her name. Never asked, it didn’t seem something important. I never learned what was bothering her. 

She told me she had grown up here, in my perfect little town; that she hadn’t swam in the ocean in thirty years. She had brown hair and tired eyes and skin darkened by the sun. By the end of the conversation she had laughed, and we had both cried.

I walked home content. That afternoon I bore witness to the life of a stranger. I had helped her to smile. I don’t know her name. I hope she swam in the ocean that day.

Popularity: 25% [?]