I had been wandering the moss-covered stones of the Angkor Wat forest long before I saw her — a small child, trembling slightly, eyes fixed on a winding path through the green. The air was thick with humidity and the scent of damp earth and frangipani blossoms, but she stood there like a little lighthouse of hope.
My boots crunched on fallen leaves as I approached slowly, careful not to startle her. There was something about that stillness — like time had paused around her. It reminded me of the kind of waiting you see in old movies: raw, human, and full of unfinished stories.
People come to Angkor Wat for its history — the ancient stones that defy time — but no amount of architecture could prepare me for this moment. She was maybe five or six, dressed in faded clothes, one foot slightly turned as if she’d been standing in that position for hours. Her gaze was fixed on a distant trail that disappeared into thick greenery.
Then I learned what had happened.
A moment earlier, she had been walking beside her mother — voices raised, frustration hanging in the air like the sticky tropical heat. I didn’t hear the words. All I saw was the heartbreak in her eyes when her mother, in a flash of anger, walked away down that forest path, leaving her behind.
I stopped about ten feet away. She didn’t flinch.
Her lips were slightly parted, trembling like she wanted to cry but held herself together with every ounce of will a small child could muster. I asked her softly, “Are you waiting for someone?” Her eyes turned toward me — wide, glistening, and unwavering.
“Yes,” she said. One word. And then her eyes returned to that trail.
You could see every emotion flicker across her face — longing, fear, hope, and that stubborn kind of courage that children have when they feel alone but refuse to let it show.
Time seemed to stretch. Birds called out in the trees, insects hummed their forest symphony, but her world was that path. I checked my watch. Minutes passed. Then more minutes. The sun shifted overhead. Leaves rustled under invisible creatures moving somewhere deeper in the woods.
Still, she stood.
I wished I could take a picture of that moment and freeze it forever — not for social media likes, but so the world could feel what I felt. The way her little shoulders lifted ever so slightly every time someone else’s voice echoed from the jungle, like maybe it could be her mother’s.
People came and went. Tourists with cameras, monks in marigold robes, local kids racing around with laughter that seemed to belong to a different world. But she stayed.
Curiosity pulled me closer, and gently, I asked, “Do you want to sit down? Would you like some water?”
She shook her head. No.
Her focus never left that path.
I realized then — this was more than waiting. It was hope.
Not the casual kind — the real, strong, unwavering kind that kids seem to carry in their bones. Hope that says, If I stay here long enough, she’ll come back. She must come back.
I thought of my own family back in the U.S. — my sister’s comforting voice after a tough day, my mom’s laugh in the kitchen, the difficult moments that always somehow smoothed out with time. What would I feel if I were this child? That question sat heavy in my chest.
The forest seemed to lean in closer, as though it, too, was waiting.
And then — just when I thought her hope might break — there it was.
A distant sound. Footsteps. Like rustling pebbles and hurried steps. Her little face lit up. I could almost see her heart lifting.
But it wasn’t her mother.
A tourist with a big camera walked right past her, unaware of the story unfolding just feet away.
Her shoulders slumped for a moment… then steadied.
And she waited.
I stood with her a little longer, silent, because sometimes words feel out of place when emotions run too deep.
Eventually, I knelt beside her and said, softly, “Your mom will come back. I believe she will.”
She didn’t smile — not yet — but her gaze didn’t drift away from that path. And somehow I knew she needed no cheering, no words of consolation — just the space to believe.
In the heart of that ancient forest, where history and humanity meet, I saw something timeless — a child’s hope that refuses to be shaken, a waiting that speaks louder than any words we could write.
