“He’s got the whole world in his hands! He’s got the whole wide world in his hands! He’s got the whole world in his hands! He’s got the whole world in his hands,” Susie sang loudly and freely as she walked down the sunny street.

Every day, she took a noontime stroll past the store fronts on the small town’s main drag on the way to the deli, smiling and singing with her face pointed toward the sky as if God himself could hear her songs. She did this every day without fail, but she didn’t like calling it a habit or a ritual; it was just something she did.

Susie worked in the post office. She sat behind the marble wall with the mail slots and sorted the envelopes and packages into their rightful places. Most people would find her job monotonous and boring, but Susie loved that it allowed her to organize and reorganize for hours upon hours on end. It was soothing and fit into her routine easily. When she was hired, she stipulated that she needed to be able to take her lunch break at noon on the dot every day, no exceptions, so she could take her walk.

The truth is, she felt lost without it. On the rare days that she couldn’t walk, either because of illness or travel or anything, everything hurt and she felt a growing vibration rising up through her body, threatening to split her in two, but she never told anyone about that. She wasn’t one for sharing.

She never had been. For her whole life, Susie felt like she existed just outside of reality, separated from even her mother’s comforting touch by some invisible yet impenetrable barrier. On the rare occasions that her mother or father could breakthrough, the touch or words felt so foreign that Susie shied away like a frightened and battered puppy. It’s not that she was abused. She had a perfectly ordinary, loving childhood. She was just different.

Her parents came to accept her eccentricities and saw that she showed her love in different, quieter ways, like how she rose early and made them tea in the mornings before work and school, or how she made a point to tell her brother and sister one positive thing about them every night before bed even though it took her some time to find the words she wanted to say.

But it never took much time for her to find her voice when she was singing. She so loved the songs she learned in Sunday school and when they came out of her, they came out easily and flamboyantly. She never stammered. She never stopped to figure out what it all meant. She never shied away from the feelings they colored her cheeks with. So she walked through the town singing because it was the only time of day she felt like she belonged, the only time of day that she didn’t mind people noticing her, the only time of day that she felt real.

Susie’s quirks have made it hard for her. She never connected with the girls she went to school with. When they were children, they teased her ruthlessly. When they were teenagers, they terrorized her relentlessly. But she was unapologetically and unequivocally herself. No amount of teasing could change her or the song in her heart.

When she graduated from high school, she took that songbird spirit with her to the US Army. Her parents worried for her, worried that her otherness would be cause enough for being a target, but she surprised everyone by excelling in her station. The military routine worked for her, and her commanding officer had a soft spot in his heart for her, so he let her take her lunchtime walks around the base, singing as happily as she did back home.

Most people left her alone. Most people saw that she was too easy a target and that her simplicity and kindness were a force. Most of the time she was content with her own company, but there were moments when she felt lonely, especially when she returned home and began working for the post office. She would go to the mall and see groups of mothers walking around with strollers, sharing their experiences in friendship. She would go to the pool and see old women exercising and laughing together. She would go to the park and see young girls playing hopscotch. Everywhere she went, she would see women of all ages connecting with each other in ways that she never could.

But she could sing. So she sang. And sang. And sang.

“He’s got the whole world in his hands,” she belted at the top of her lungs as the sun shone on her upturned face, warming her soul.

“He’s got the whole wide world in his hands,” she sang as she walked toward her favorite deli to get her favorite sandwich to eat on her favorite bench under her favorite tree in the town square.

“He’s got the whole world in his hands,” she sang as she looked past the sign reading ‘delicious lunches’ on the deli window and saw two women her age. Their arms were locked at the elbow and the shorter woman rested her head on the older woman’s shoulder. They looked at the menu above the counter and laughed at some private joke that no one else was in on. They looked like they had been friends forever, and that was probably true.

“He’s got the whole world in his hands,” Susie whispered, feeling the familiar pang in her heart with the realization that she won’t ever feel the kind of love that they share.