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Thompson RCMP are asking for help from the public to find a 37-year-old woman who has not been heard from since late July.

Melanie Beardy, from Split Lake First Nation, was last in contact on July 26, said an RCMP news release Saturday. Beardy, who was in Thompson, was reported missing last Sunday and RCMP said both police and her family are worried for her well-being.

Attempts to find Beardy have been unsuccessful, said RCMP.

She’s described as 5’4 with a large build and long, black hair usually worn in a ponytail, said Mounties. She has a tattoo on her chest that reads: “Elvis,” and has a tattoo of a dreamcatcher on her left forearm.

Every so often, an ordinary moment turns out to be about something else entirely.

I watched two women meet outside a grocery store recently. Neither seemed to know the other. One had dropped a bag, oranges rolling across the wet pavement, and the other bent down without a word to help gather them. It took maybe 40 seconds. They exchanged a few sentences I couldn’t hear, laughed once, and went their separate ways. I don’t think either of them thought about it again.

I did, though. I kept thinking about how neither woman had planned to meet the other that morning. Their separate mornings happened to touch for less than a minute, and then continued on, changed by some small amount neither could probably name.

For a long time, when I thought about what brings people together, bridges were the image that came to mind. Bridges connect two known sides. They’re built on purpose, toward a destination already identified. I still believe in that kind of work. Deliberate bridges, built with intention toward a place meant to be reached, matter enormously.