I couldn't hide my surprise and found myself opening my mouth instinctively. She walked towards me, holding a frail-looking child in her left arm and carrying a medical record and a thick stack of densely filled documents in her right hand.
She was still in the crowd, yet still no one paid her any attention.
In that moment, I suddenly understood everything.
She passed by me. Watching her unsteady figure as she moved away, a wave of discomfort washed over me. Whether it was the glaring lights of the street or the intense sunlight, I felt a pang of heartache.
I was ashamed of my previous suspicions and even more regretful for lacking the courage to believe in her.
We tend to assume that what we see is the absolute truth. Seeing poverty, we assume a young person is lazy; seeing squalor, we judge that they have been self-indulgent. We often make baseless assumptions and firmly believe them.
At that time, my mind was racing, echoing a single thought: Never judge someone's life based on superficial observations, never do it.