I am sitting in the sun at Wayfinder coffee shop in Colorado Springs. (If you are ever in the area, be sure to stop by). My affogato has been awesome down to the last little bit I was able to scrap out of the bottom of the cup.

Across the way from me are two young ladies. I guess them to be sisters. They visit off and on with each other.

I notice that every once in a while, one of the sisters gets a far away look in her eyes, her face gets sad looking, and her eyes get red. At first I’m not sure I am seeing correctly, but when I see it several times I am sure.

She is just barely holding back the tears. I wish there would be a way I could help her, but I realize it wouldn’t be my place, and each time she looks sad, she talks some with her sister, so I figure she is getting the help she needs for the time being.

The other young woman is holding her baby.

I’m a sucker when it comes to babies and little humans. And so, I watch their little one off and on. It is well behaved, and it is only when it gets tired that it whimpers a little.

The mother puts it in the stroller and pushes the stroller back and forth, but it looks like the little one isn’t having it, and so they start packing up to leave.

One of the sisters, the one who looked sad off and on, looks at me and nods with a smile. I haven’t seen this gesture on a woman before, that is, the nod and the smile together, and it piques my interest a bit.

They come even with me on their way out and I stand to talk with their little one. I lean over to pat his fat little cheeks and ask the mother how old he is. Her eyebrows scrunch up together and she shakes her head slightly.

“No understand,” she says. “No speak English.”

“Oh,” I say, and then I take another language barrier risk.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

She understands and says, “Ukraine.”

“I’m glad you are in our country,” I say. “Welcome here.”

Her face lights with joy, and somehow I think she got what I said.

Since then, my mind has gone hither and yon thinking about those women.

And so, here I step out on a branch that might break under me.

I know there are those who are upset at all the illegal immigrants who are in this country. And, probably, it would be nice if they could become legalized before they came here.

But as I thought of those ladies, and the obvious sorrow they carried, it didn’t take very much thinking to arrive at the reason why they might be sad.

And I realized that reason was so much of a heavier burden to carry than anything I have had to carry.

Is it asking too much, then, to realize that I somehow escaped what they have gone through and since I have escaped it, I am in a position show them kindness?

Let’s leave those immigrants who are here for the wrong reasons to the powers that be, and concentrate on looking for those who carry a heavier burden then we do because of the horrors they have left behind.

It’s these that deserve our kindness and, as much as we can understand, our empathy.