This Girl Will Be Okay

My burrito comes down the line and as I am paying for my food, I notice the cashier looking off behind me while she takes my cash. She is preoccupied and scoops too many chips into the bowl on my red plastic tray. She is transfixed by a man and his ten or eleven year old daughter who looks like she has been crying. I sit two tables away from them. I can't hear their whole conversation, but the feeling I get is that something happened with a group of other kids, maybe at school. At one point she says, I just don't know what to do anymore through her tears and mouthful of beans and rice. The dad stays calm, keeps talking to her, listening to her, asking her questions. He does not tell her to stop crying. He does not tell her it'll be okay. He does not seem to be uncomfortable with her emotions, or embarrassed that she is crying in a public place. What is happening here, in my neighborhood taco place, looks like love. After a few more minutes she gets up to go to the bathroom and he gets up too and hugs her. The sight of them moves me deeply, tears are in my eyes so fast it surprises me. This makes me think I never had that. This makes me want to say something to the dad two tables down. This makes me know this girl will be okay.