The Grotto Response

"How little they could know of me or I of them."

This is a quote from the narrator of the short story, The Grotto, by Robert Olen Butler and here's my response to it:

When she said that she was referring to the women in their burkas and how different she was from them.  Deep down inside I really don't think they were that  different from each other.  Obviously we'll never know how similar they were, all we do know was how different they were in appearances.

That encounter was similar to the one she had with the man in the grotto.  She was nervous about his motives at first and what his intentions were while he was staying there.  She was not seeing beyond their obvious differences and of how little they knew of each other.  It wasn't until after she was sitting there for a while did she really come around and actually get to know a little about him.  Once she started talking to him, I think she realized they weren't so different after all.  It was the fact that both of them could share the agony of losing their mothers that helped them bond for those few minutes.  Everyone has their own life's story.  Taking the time to find out who someone is, is something that will bring us closer to each other as human beings.

After I read this it it kind of reminded me of the last Chapel we had.  The speaker was talking about how half way around the world there is someone out there who is just like you.  That's almost exactly like what happened in this story.  Clara had travelled from Alabama to Egypt and some how wound up in this grotto where there was another person who was like her.  He had gone through the same things she had.  It all goes back to that quote.  How little these strangers knew of each other......yet somehow they still were human enough to get to know a little about each other and bond.