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I remember walking to school as a kid, in thin early morning light. There was mist. And I saw a little girl running down the path that divided the end of the street from the woodland, crying. The path twisted at the end a touch before it joined the road. She was crying, mummy, I can’t see you. Because that little twist meant you couldn’t see straight down the path to the road, and it was misty, and for some endless cold moment she couldn’t see her mother and her sibling as they moved ahead of her. The little girl was running for her life, for her safety and for everything she’d ever known. Mummy, I can’t see you. I can’t see you.

More than forty years later, I still think about that. I remember stopping and waiting to be sure that she reached the road and saw her mother before walking on to school. And, now, I think about that because my vision is getting a little misted with age, a little more like thin early morning light than noon light, and it’s more than forty years later, and I wonder when the day will come that I’m crying that I can’t see you.