Jordan Edelheit, Jerusalem, Israel

The kids can’t be more than 6 and 8 years old. Scooters upright, helmets ready and a sliding slope sidewalk made to impress.

And that’s when it happened, a misplaced pebble — or maybe it was destined to be in that spot so I would be writing about it in this moment — a wobbly scream and a crashing fall, one of the kids had face planted. And it wasn’t pretty.

In a flash, my roommate and I got up from our picnic blanket no more than 15 feet away and ran over. And then we stopped. Right around 6 feet back. And stood. And looked down at this crying kid, slowly soothing himself back to a calm place after a reasonably shocking moment.

I was stunned. Not just by the fall — a solid B+ in the scheme of kiddo scooter crashes — but by this confronting moment.

After nearly 32 days in quarantine mode, no new interactions with strangers and certainly not kids on scooters, my roommate’s birthday served as needed motivation to get out of the house and explore a new park

We sat and picnicked and toasted with kombucha to the bizarre circumstances of celebrating a birthday during a pandemic. We made small banter with these two young children as they played with masks on and scooted around in the distance.

And we looked up at the same time to witness this tiny, heartbreaking moment of a child falling down. We found ourselves instinctively running over, only to stop with caution just a few feet too far away to feel we would really be able to be helpful to this child.

All of us masked, eagerly searching for any responsible adult who appeared to have some semblance of a connection with this befuddled child.

How are you supposed to reach out and offer help in the middle of a global crisis without crossing the boundaries that may sacrifice your health or another’s?

How could I bear witness to this seemingly tiny, heartbreaking moment and find acceptance that being a calming voice of encouragement might be the most appropriate thing for me to do in that moment?

I didn’t know this child’s stories, his potential symptoms nor if I might unintentionally be causing more of a risk to the children and their families by crossing that fateful 6 feet mark

My entire life, if I saw a kid fall, it would be met with an automatic need to go over and offer a hand . . . or a hug.

And now this one tiny moment was challenging it all.