Hands and a Tree I'll Never Unsee

This morning, I saw the hands of a young girl in Belize while hiking with Scout here in Cincinnati.

Last Sunday while in Belize, I photographed the hands of that young girl cupped around a pink glow stick.  She had received the glow stick as a gift for coming to the dedication of the community center but because it was so bright out, she was having a hard time seeing how bright the color really was.  So I showed her to cup her hands around the glow stick to give it a bit more darkness and then I photographed her hands cupping the glow stick as you see in this photo.  This girl shadowed me most of the rest of the afternoon and also took it as her personal mission to deliver as many cupcakes as possible to me (only one of which I asked for).  She was a really sweet young girl and I don’t know if I will ever see her again.

But I did today (sort of).  I was hiking with Scout on a trail that I’ve hiked many other times and I saw her hands on the right side of the trail.  Not her literal hands of course but I saw them in this tree that I had passed without noticing many other times.  But today, in the patterns of the wood, I saw her hands cupped around that glow stick.  So I stopped and said a prayer of thanks and a prayer of blessing for her.  I think I’ll see her hands every time I pass that tree and each time, I’ll lift a prayer for her.