Her Daddy's Coat

As I walked home this afternoon, I followed briefly behind a mother and daughter. The little girl, probably only five or six years old, trailed behind her mother at times, skipping through puddles and seeming to thoroughly enjoy the light rain. From time to time she would catch her mother's hand and walk under the umbrella, but she made a charming image on her own, this child, splashing about in a drab brown dress, little white tights, shoes that were easily a size too large for her, and what must have been her daddy's coat, dark leather with sleeves that reached to her knees and flopped loosely as she went along her merry way. The girl would stretch out her arms for balance, sleeves dangling inches past her fingertips, when hopping over, around, and through the pooling water, and I eventually lost sight of the pair when they disappeared into a small grocery. The child was dripping but happy, because for a moment there, she became a bird, soaring over puddles in her daddy's coat.