“Faster!” A young girl with chocolate brown ringlets grabs the hand of an old man with thick, white hair. Her pale, smooth, hand looks miniature in his large one, well tanned and lined with age. The little girl’s face is aglow with happiness and her cheeks are flushed with excitement.

“Slow down!” the man laughs as the young girl tugs him around the corner of the street. Although the man seems happy enough as he walks with the little girl, his eyes are wistful as he glances out at the horizon, and there is an air of sadness to him like he is a soldier who lived through a hard battle and saw things he can never forget. Together, the man and the girl walk into an old playground, with a tree house and swing set. The man frowns at what he sees in front of him. What? When he thinks of a playground, he envisions well-kept park with tons of laughing-- and a few crying-- children. But his playground has equipment that is old and rusted and falling apart, and it is deserted. There are no laughing children, no crying children, no children at all. All there is in the playground is the dilapidated equipment, positioned not one hundred yards away from a junkyard.

For a minute, all is silent as the man stares, dumbfounded at the scene before him. If quiet could be a real sound, this would be it. The world seems as if it is holding its breath. The birds stop their melodious chirping and though the wind still blows, the leaves that rustle in the trees still. The traffic of the busy street behind winds down, and not a single noise is heard. The silence is so deafening it seems as if someone has pressed mute on the TV, except this time, it silenced the world.

The old man’s lips part, but no sound escapes. He is shocked, and for some reason what he sees before him makes him feel depressed. A cold pit forms in his stomach, as deep and dark as an abyss. A child’s playground, old, dilapidated, and falling apart, located in front of a junkyard filled with stuff no one wants or needs anymore. How did it become like this? The man wonders to himself, surveying the scene before him. Is there no one who cares enough anymore to preserve the playground, where so many children have played and made memories soaring on the swings and climbing in the tree house? There is trash and litter coating the ground like a thick carpet, and where the grass does poke through, it is yellow and dried out. Is there no one who cares? They stay like this, the man and the girl, staring at the bleak and disheartening scene before them. It is as if this moment is frozen in time, lasting forever and ever.

And then suddenly, the spell is broken as the little girl lets out a cry of joy and runs over to the swings, her dark brown ringlets streaming out behind her, the pink ribbon in her hair flapping in the wind. She stands in front of the rusted swing set and turns to face us. She is beaming and her face is alight with happiness. She tries to clamber up onto the swing, but she is too short and not strong enough to lift herself up. “Help!” She reaches out to the old man, her wide brown eyes beseeching him to aid her.

But the man is frozen, still staring at the scene before him. His face is filled with sadness, his shoulders hunched over, the life and energy and hope drained out of him. But there is something more to his face, a certain melancholy, a certain wistfulness as if he is remembering something that once was, something that will never be the same again.
An unbidden memory pops into the man’s head, one he had vowed to never think of again. He sees his wife lying in bed, her eyes closed, pale as the white hospital gown she is clothed in. Her breathing is ragged and choppy, as if every inhale and exhale of air is too much for her fragile body. The man clutches her cold hand as if he is drowning in a cold, dark ocean and it is his lifeline. A tear leaks out of the corner of his eye, drips off his nose, and lands on her unmoving arm. “Why?” he whispers, his voice and his heart breaking.
The man stares ahead at the old playground. He thinks of his wife, his darling wife, and the broken down swing set reminds him of her, reminds him of how lifeless and fragile she was at the end of her days. The man seems deflated, everything about him giving off a lonely, hopeless aura. In his brown eyes there are twin pools of despair. As he stares at the playground, he feels downcast and mournful, as if he is the one rusted and abandoned instead of the old swing set.

“Grandpa!” The little girl stamps her foot, growing impatient. The old man, her grandpa, stares straight ahead without really seeing, his eyes gazing into a memory of pain and suffering only he can see. “Grandpa, help me!” The little girl runs over to him and tugs on the sleeve of his blue, long-sleeved shirt. He shakes himself out of his stupor and looks down at his young granddaughter.

Slowly, his face changes. His shoulders straighten, his eyes lift; he seems to inflate again. He seems alive, not the empty shell of a person he was just moments before, full of hopelessness and despair. He glances at the bleak scene behind the little girl and then looks back down at her. He thinks about the broken down playground, and the girl who wants to play on it, no matter the state it is in. He thinks of his wife, how happy and comfortable she seemed, making the most of the time she was given. Slowly, he reaches out and envelops her small hand in his. She looks up at him, a smile lighting up her tiny face, a beacon of hope in this desolate place. As the man stares down at the little girl, the sparkle seems to return to his eyes, and as they walk, hand in hand, over to the swing set, the spring begins to return to his step.

The old man, the grandfather, picks up his little granddaughter and places her on the old swing. “Push me!” She demands, kicking her small feet so that the swing bounces around. So the man does, smiling as if there is nothing else in the world he would rather do. She squeals in delight, her dark hair streaming out behind her as she flies through the air, higher and higher. She pumps her little legs and holds on tightly to the chain in either sides of her.

The man laughs along with his granddaughter, a new emotion in his dark eyes. You can look at an old swing set and see only the bad, The man thinks to himself. You can see only the depressing parts, the parts that are rusted and broken down and forgotten. Or you can look at the same swing set and see the hope, the joy, the happy children who want to play and enjoy life, and appreciate all that is good. The man stands there and pushes the little girl on the swings until the sun begins to set, bathing the world in a ruby glow. He pushes her until his arms are sore, until he thinks the little girl might go soaring up to the sun because of how high she is.

And although the swing set is as broken-down and rusted and neglected as ever, as the old man pushes the little girl, his granddaughter, on the swings, the playground seems a little less abandoned and lonely.