Baby Talk
She sits among crying children behind a glass wall.

She is there by choice, this old woman. She could join the others outside in their Sunday best, but she likes to be reminded that life goes on.

She takes the bus to church from the condo she lives in. It is fully paid; all she pays now is association dues. The neighbors also have children, some of them, and they play in her courtyard. Sometimes the sound of their games gives her a headache, but she endures it. All these gangs and shootings, better to suffer the headache than to be robbed in her home.

Sometimes in church she gets a headache, too, but that does not drive her from the cry room. When babies cry they tell her the purpose of life.

Men do not understand this, even priests. The church changes slowly, it now allows young girls to assist - they call them alter servers. Perhaps when the young girls are allowed to become priests they will understand, perhaps not. Maybe you need children of your own to understand.

She will come again to the cry room next Sunday, to listen to the sweet sound of children crying. It is her ritual of hope.