It’s easy to think that everything is fine

Until some woman you barely know

Cuts across your path in the locker room

Sobbing

And shuts herself in a bathroom stall and you just stand there

Listening to her sounds of anguish

Because as you later discover

She has lost custody of her daughter

In a brutal court fight in which she has been found

By a judge to be a

Negligent mother.

I tell the woman

That it will be okay

In the long run

Her daughter

Will not grow up to hate her

Even if I am not sure that is true.

Some children will not forgive.

Some mothers will grieve forever.

Sometimes nothing is fine.