What was she thinking?

I was so tired of the routine. I decided I was simply going to enjoy this weekend. I dragged Harsha, Anant and Dimitrios to Washington DC. I had a whale of a time. We did all things that tourists do, and then our perverse jokes too.

There was, however, this one moment which made me pause. It was at the Vietnam memorial. As I was walking along the wall inscribed with the names of all those who had laid down their lives in the war, I noticed this woman kneeling in front of the wall. I paused to look at what she was doing. She put a white paper over a name and started pencil shading. I started wondering... was it her son? was it her husband? her brother?

Once she was done, she folded away the paper and kept it in her bag. Then she touched the name end to end, several times. More thoughts rushed to my head... is she crying? is she proud of him? I'm sure she's proud.. but does she think his life was wasted? how is she living without him?

I could only imagine this to be a part of some war movie. But when it happened right before me, it had me frozen for a second. I tried to catch her eyes as she walked away, but couldn't. This was supposed to be a fun weekend. I had to shake this off. So we went to the Einstein statue and clicked funny pictures. But once I started walking.. I was thinking again... What was she thinking? Surely she thought it was a waste... what came out of this?

It made so much sense when I was this...