Invisible at the Door. (2 min 24 sec)

This morning at a local bakery, as the hum of college students and quiet chatter filled the air, a woman approached the entry door. She was older, a Black woman wrapped in a heavy coat, pushing a bright yellow grocery cart loaded with her life’s essentials. She carried a purse slung over her shoulder and an air of quiet resilience — the kind you only get from years of moving through a world that rarely sees you.

For a moment, she paused at the door, her gaze lingering. You could sense it — the flicker of a desire to step inside, perhaps use the restroom, or maybe just savor a piece of normalcy, a few minutes of warmth. But then, reality surfaced, the unspoken rules of places like this. The entry door was closed, and the risk of being turned away loomed heavy. With a quiet, almost reluctant step, she moved to the exit door, giving it a hopeful tug, as if it might yield. But it wouldn’t open from the outside. The brief flicker of hope faded; she turned back, resigned, gently placing her purse back in her cart, pushing it across the parking lot toward the unknown.

All this unfolded while others sat oblivious, absorbed in their screens, their conversations, their coffee. I watched — perhaps the only one who noticed her silent struggle, the quiet grace with which she moved on.

In that moment, I glimpsed a hidden world at the edge of our comfortable bubble — a woman, out in the cold, invisible yet profoundly human, standing just a door away from the warmth and comfort we so easily take for granted. Her hesitation, that pause at the threshold, was a powerful reminder of the quiet struggles surrounding us, unseen, unacknowledged.

What does it mean to live in a world where doors are closed to some, not by locks, but by silent judgments? We’re so consumed by our routines that the lives unfolding around us slip into the background, barely perceived. And yet, here was this woman — a solitary figure on the other side of the glass, carrying her own story, her own weight.

The poignancy lies not just in her resilience or her acceptance of yet another door that wouldn’t open; it’s in the dissonance between her world and the one inside. She moved on, perhaps all too used to it, her dignity intact, while inside, life carried on as if she were a ghost.

This encounter compels us to confront our own awareness — or lack thereof. To ask, what else are we missing? And perhaps, just by bearing witness, by awakening to the lives at the edges of our own, we might bridge that gap, even in the smallest of ways. Because sometimes, the only door that opens is the one within our hearts, letting her presence linger — if just for a moment — so we don’t forget what it means to truly see beyond ourselves.

#thinkgod
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.