At first, I thought she was pushing a baby in the stroller. The next time we passed each other in the grocery, I saw that it was empty. I watched as she delicately placed a box of crackers in it, then added some other products. After a week, because I'm young and dense, I asked her "how come?" and I was rewarded with a lovely, gentle smile as she replied; Oh, when I'm not with my grandchild, I use this as my shopping- cart. "Good idea," I answered. But as neighbors do, I kept seeing her around the shops. One day, I noticed that she was standing in the parking lot and her eyes and body language said it all: she was terrified. Maybe from somewhere in my childhood,... I understood that look. I stayed around in case she was in danger of falling. But somehow, she began to take these tiny baby steps, pushing the little stroller until she reached the rows of huge shopping carts outside ths supermarket. She grabbed on to the metal handle of one of those carts and held on tight. Then, she placed her stroller inside the big cart, took a deep breath..and..looking truly victorious, she stood up straight and raised her head. That's when I saw that she had cried her way over to the store. I tune people out sometimes but there was something horrble that had happened to hurt her emotions.. I knew that, and there was something touching about the way she made it..on her own. Ah, what do I know..except I'll be old one day too.