Today I met this phenomenal woman. She was elderly, small but not frail. Her skin was pale, as if a whiteness illuminated her very being. She had light brown eyes, and curiously, they had a ring of sky blue around each pupil. It looked like a fusion of earth and water, skin and tears, sky and land. I had never seen anything like it! She was born in Puerto Rico and came to New York. Because of her fear of flying on airplanes she has not returned since. She doesn’t know where her family is, and she feels lonely and homesick. She lives terrorized by a violent neighbor whom uses drugs and threatens to harm her. She feels that the fumes from the cigarettes and drugs are bad for her health but she wants to avoid problems. In addition, her neighbor lies and twists things to seem to be her fault. She lives in fear and misery. The bus took really long, so we had a sad but beautiful conversation. We live a block away. She reminds me so much of my grandmother, it was really overwhelming… Anyway, we got off the bus and we hugged and wished the best for each other. I held her hand for a second and walked away… I turned around to ask her to keep in touch, to call me when she needed to…but when I turned, she was gone. She may have disappeared from my eyes, but never from my heart….
humility
