She Was Apologetic For Being Alive

She was lovely, a beautiful kind soul, giving, loving, generous, but also apologetic for being alive. Her light gray eyes danced and pranced, and her laugh was hearty when you got to know her. Lots of people thought she should be invisible. They wanted their garbage dumped, and their rooms vacuumed and cleaned silently. Knowing this, she usually kept her head down, saying few words, afraid of being rebuffed. I brought her a sandwich, and stayed late one afternoon, to get to know her. She had sacrificed her whole life to help her drug-addicted mother, and now her drug-addicted sister. All of her money went into her mother’s bills, her mother’s habits, and her sister’s four children. Her sister was currently serving another sentence in Leavenworth prison. Pregnant, of course. In a few months, my friend would get a call to come pick up the new baby from the prison. What choice do I have? She asked me. We cannot have her babies raised by strangers. She would drop off the baby with her drug-addicted mother who keeps the blinds closed all day, And bemoans the fact that the other children there are hungry, and crabby and wake her up with their noise. She did the best she could, enabling her mother and her sister, sometimes taking the babies to their well-check appointments and paying for them of course. She gave everything she could to her family. A beautiful soul. I asked her what she had wanted to do as a child, what she dreamed about doing when she grew up. I dreamed someone would take care of me, she said. I wanted someone to save me, but they never came. No, we would not want these babies raised by strangers.