Babbling Brook

Well, ‘I’ has got to be the easiest prompt of all!  Part of editing is going through and finding ways to take ‘I’ out .

I have a day off. I had someone visit me yesterday! I might just have a new friend that lives around here.

We sat on my deck in the sun yesterday, a hot spot, and talked about how we got here; how we ended up working at a grocery store late in life, living on our own.

She had a wonderful husband, “larger than life” she said, “everyone loved him”.  He was good to her and they loved each other. A year and half ago he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died within a few months.

When I met her at the store, I had just started and was not feeling very good or confident…. I felt sorry for myself.  She started within weeks of me; her husband had only been dead for six months. She would blank over and tear up.

This morning I found her on Facebook to send her a friend request and saw photos of her husband. He was very good-looking and had a big, genuine smile. There was a photo of them together with his arm around her. They were obviously happy and in love.

Life can really suck sometimes.  Another cashier I work with who is old and tired, too, owes $25,000 to the franchise she once owned. They say she owes it for past unpaid GST (tax). She works 8 hour shifts and pays every penny she can toward her debt.

Another, younger and more together than us, is in a family that lost two teenagers within two years; one to cancer another in a car accident. Trying to heal from the first, then experiencing another loss, the family has been in pain for years.

When you scratch beneath the surface a little, everyone has a story.

I am humbled by the pain some people have gone through then had the courage and strength to rise to what they must do even when they feel like curling up into a ball in bed.

We talked on my deck for a while but said she had to go to work. I said, “so do I!”

We were both working last night; she was closing seafood, I was closing the bakery. I had to pass her often to take garbage out, get a mop and bucket, etc.  She had to put away fishy stuff on display, shovel the ice into a large cart to be taken outside and dumped, then clean everything.

We stopped and talked a lot, joked around with the young guys. It made the night a lot less depressing!

aye……..

http://lindaghill.com/2015/03/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-2115/