Peggy

So this is a really funny thing I've noticed: when I post links to my blog on facebook, my average readership is around 70 views (not including really popular ones, like the why I'm not Mormon one, which currently has 501 views.....whaaaat?!). When I don't post a link, I get an average of 12 views. I would like to thank the small number of loyal readers I have. I will be faithful to you, and I will not start posting facebook links just to up my numbers. I am a bigger person than that.

Well, I'm trying to be a bigger person than that. So I might share the occasional earth-shattering revelation :)

There are a couple of things about today that struck me.

When I woke up it didn't seem like it was going to be a spectacular morning. But I managed to wash the dishes before work. I didn't get snappy with anyone for two whole hours. After that it kind of went downhill. For a while there, however, I was feeling pretty normal. It was nice.

There is an old woman I have bonded with in the shop. I think her name is Peggy. She is Irish, short, loosing her hair, has dementia, and talks to me about how much she wishes she were dead. After listening to some of her life stories I can understand her attitude. Her dad abused her. She worked in shops full time from the age of 15. She has one daughter who only uses her for her money, and a grandson that does the same. She is in and out of hospitals where the doctors tell her nothing is wrong, though anyone who can hear that hacking cough of hers would know something is up. She didn't get flowers or a card for mother's day. And all she wants is to be out of this country to bide the time until she dies, as she tells me every day.

But that's not all she is. She has a sharp and funny wit. There was a front page news story about some athlete that had come out as gay, and when she'd read it she turned around and said to me, "Why is that on the front page? I'm lesbian, but I don't go around telling everybody!" And the one time she was telling me and my co-worker about shrooms. He said to her that his father's advice was to try everything once but not get addicted, to which she responded she'd already tried everything by now. He insisted that she couldn't have enjoyed all worldly pursuits, to which she replied, "You're right; I haven't tried you yet!"

I. Love. This. Woman. She is so miserable. I don't think anyone has ever told her how much she is worth. She's lonely and old and nearly at the end of her life. But we are friends. She tells me she wants to adopt me, that I can be her granddaughter. And I happily say that I am, because I need to take care of this wonderful lady who is so alone and so much like me. And I know she'll be gone soon. I dread the day when she doesn't come in for her pack of cigarettes, asking three times how much they are as she rummages around the pennies in her purse. She needs a person, and I want to be her person. It's been a while since I've felt the desire to extend kindness towards anyone. Now that I have, I don't want to loose her.